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THOMAS   ADOLPnUS  TROLLOPE. 

From  a  Painting  by  Maria  Taylor. 


WHAT    I    REMEMBER 


BY 


THOMAS  ADOLPHUS  TROLLOPE 

ACTnOR   OP 
'  LINDISFARN  CHASE  "   "  A  SIREN  "   "  DCRNTON  ABBEY  "  ETC. 


NEW    YORK 
UARPER  &  BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN  SQUARE 

1888 


*    •   •  •      •  • 

*  •  •  •     •    • 

•  •  t  •    «  • 


••  •    • 

•  •  •    • 

•  •    •    • 

•  ■         • 


OMXIBUS    WICCAMICIS 

T.  ADOLPHUS  TROLLOPE 

13    M.   DE    WINTON   PR>PE   WINTON   CCLL, 

OLIM    ALUMNUS 

GRATO  AKIMO 
D.  D   D. 


CONTENTS. 


OUAPTEB  PAGE 

I.    EARLY    DAYS    IN    LONDON 1 

iL  EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON — Continued 20 

III.  AT   HARROW 40 

IV.  AT  HARROW — Continued 57 

V.    AT    WINCHESTER 66 

VI.  AT  WINCHESTER — Continued   ........  88 

VII.    VISIT    TO    AMERICA „       ,       .  105 

viiL  VISIT  TO  AMERICA — Continued 117 

IX.    AT    OXFORD 132 

X.    OLD    DIARIES 153 

tr.          XI.  OLD  DIARIES — Continued 158 

"pj        XII.  OLD   DIARIES — continued 168 

(VI 

cc         Xin.    AT    PARIS 181 

a. 

"^          XIV.    AT    BRUGES. AT    HADLEY 201 

XV.    GERMAN    TOUR. IN    AUSTRIA 212 

_       XVI.   IN  AUSTRIA — Continued 228 

^       XVII.    AT    BIRMINGHAM 239 

(a     XVIII.    THE    PARTING    OF    THE    WAYS 247 

XIX.    MESMERIC    EXPERIENCES 252 

XX.    IN    THE    NORTH    OF    ENGLAND 275 

XXI.    JOURNEY    IN    BRITTANY 287 

XXII.     AT     I'KVKITH. AT    PARIS 298 

XXIII.  IN    WESTERN    FRANCE. AGAIN    IN    PARIS    ....  320 

XXIV.  IN    IKF.LAND. AT    ILFRACOMBE. IN    FLORENCE    .       .  327 

XXV.     IN     FLORENCE 337 

XXVI.    CHARLES    DICKENS .  351 


VI  CONTENTS. 

OUAPTKB  PAGB 

XXVII.    AT    LUCCA    BATHS 364 

XXVIII.    THE    GARROWS. SCIENTIFIC     CONGRESSES. MY 

FIRST    MARRIAGE 3*76 

XXIX.    ELIZABETH    BARRETT    BROWNING 390 

XXX.    REMINISCENCES    AT    FLORENCE 404 

XXXI.   REMINISCENCES  AT  FLORENCE — Continued      .     .415 

XXXII.    LETTERS    FROM     PEARD. GARIBALDI. LETTERS 

FROM    PULSZKY 425 

XXXIII.  WALTER    S.    LANDOR. G.    P.    MARSH 438 

XXXIV.  MR.    AND    MRS.   LEWES 451 

XXXV.    LETTERS    FROM    MR.   AND    MRS.   LEWES     ....  474 

XXXVI.    MY      MOTHER. LETTERS     OF     MARY     MITFORD. 

LETTERS    OF    T.    C.    GRATTAN 488 

XXXVII.    THEODOSIA    TROLLOPE 505 

XXXVIII.    DEATH  OF  MR.  GARROW. PROTESTANT  CEMETERY. 

ANGEL    IN    THE    HOUSE    NO    MORE    ....  517 

XXXIX.    CONCLUSION 521 

INDEX 523 


WHAT   I   REMEMBER 


CHAPTER  I. 

EARLY    DAYS    IN    LOXDOJf. 

T  HAVE  no  intention  of  writing  an  autobiography. 
There  has  been  nothing  in  my  life  Avhich  could  justify 
such  a  pretension.  But  I  have  lived  a  long  time.  I  re- 
member an  aged  porter  at  the  monaster}'  of  the  "Sagro 
Eremo,"  above  Camaldoli,  who  had  taken  brevet  rank  as 
a  saint  solely  on  the  score  of  his  ninety  years.  His  breth- 
ren called  him  and  considered  him  as  Saint  Simon  simply 
because  he  had  been  porter  at  that  gate  for  more  than 
sixty  years.  Now  my  credentials  as  a  babbler  of  remi- 
niscences are  of  a  similar  nature  to  those  of  the  old  porter. 
I  have  been  here  so  many,  many  years.  And  then  those 
years  have  comprised  the  best  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury— a  century  during  Avhich  change  has  been  more  rap- 
idly at  Avork  amont;  all  the  surroundino;s  of  EajTlisslinien 
than  probably  during  any  other  century  of  which  social 
liistory  has  to  tell. 

Of  course  middle  -  aged  men  know,  as  well  as  we  an- 
cients, the  fact  that  social  life  in  P]ngland — or,  rather,  let 
me  say  in  Europe  —  is  very  different  from  what  it  was  in 
the  days  of  their  fathers,  and  are  perfectly  well  acquainted 
with  the  great  and  oftentimes  celebrated  causes  which 
have  differentiated  tiie  Victorian  era  from  all  others.  J?ut 
only  the  small  records  of  an  unimportant  individual  life, 
only  the  meniorii's  which  happen  to  linger  in  an  old  man's 
brain,  like  bits  of  drift-weed  floating  round  and  round  in 
the  eddies  of  a  back-water,  can  bring  vividly  before  the 
young  of  thf  present  generation  those  ways  and  manners 
1 


2  WHAT   I   rvKMEMBER. 

of  acting  find  thinking  and  talking  in  the  ordinary,  every- 
day aftairs  of  life  whieli  indicate  the  differences  between 
themselves  and  their  grandfathers. 

I  was  born  in  the  year  1810  at  No.  16  Keppel  Street, 
Russell  Square.  The  region  was  at  that  time  inhabited  by 
the  ]irofessional  classes,  mainly  lawyers.  My  father  Avas  a 
barrister  of  the  Middle  Temple  to  the  best  of  my  recollec- 
tion, but  having  chambers  in  the  Old  Square,  Lincoln's 
Inn.  A  quarter  of  a  century  or  so  later  all  the  district  in 
question  became  rather  deteriorated  in  social  estimation, 
but  has,  I  am  told,  recently  recovered  itself  in  this  respect 
under  the  careful  and  judicious  administration  of  the 
Duke  of  Bedford.  The  Avhole  region  appeared  to  me, 
when  I  was  recently  in  London,  about  the  least  changed 
part  of  the  London  of  my  youthful  daj^s.  As  I  walked 
up  Store  Street,  which  runs  in  a  line  from  Kepi)el  Street 
to  Tottenham  Court  Road,  I  spied  the  name  of  "  Pidding, 
Confectioner."  I  immediately  entered  the  shop  and  made 
a  purchase  at  the  counter.  "  I  did  not  in  the  least  want 
tliis  tart,"  said  I  to  the  girl  who  was  serving  in  the  shop. 
"  Why  did  you  take  it,  then  ?"  said  she,  with  a  little  toss 
of  her  head.  "  Nobody  asked  you  to  buy  it."  "I  bought 
it,"  rejoined  I,  "because  I  used  to  buy  pastry  of  Mr.  Pid- 
ding in  this  shop  seventy  years  ago."  "Lor',  sir!"  said 
the  girl,  "did  you  really?"  She  probably  considered  me 
to  be  the  Wandering  Jew. 

I  remember  Avell  that  my  father  used  to  point  out  to  me 
houses  in  Russell  Square,  Bedford  Square,  and  Blooms- 
bury  Square  in  which  judges  and  other  notable  legal  lu- 
minaries used  to  live.  But  even  in  those  days  the  locali- 
ties in  question,  especially  the  last  named  of  them,  were 
beginning  to  be  deserted  by  such  personages,  who  were 
already  moving  farther  westward.  The  occasion  of  these 
walks  with  my  father  through  the  squares  I  have  named 
— to  which  Red  Lion  Square  might  have  been  added — was 
one  the  ])ainful  nature  of  which  has  fixed  it  in  my  mem- 
ory indelibly. 

"  Infandiim  memoria  jiibes  renovaie  dolorem." 

For  the  object  of  these  walks  was  the  rendering  an  ac- 
count of  the  morning's  studies.     I  was  about  six  years  old 


EARLY   DAYS   IX  LONDON.  3 

when,  under  my  father's  auspices,  I  was  first  introduced 
to  the  "Eton  Latin  Grammar."  He  was  a  Wykehamist, 
had  been  a  fellow  of  New  College,  and  had  held  a  Vine- 
rian  fellowship.  And  his  great  ambition  was  that  his  eld- 
est son,  myself,  should  tread  in  his  steps  and  pursue  the 
same  career.  DXs  aliter  visum!  as  regards  at  least  the 
latter  stages  of  that  career.  For  I  did  become,  and  am,  a 
Wykehamist,  as  much  as  eight  years  at  Coll.  B.  M.  Win- 
ton  prope  Winton  can  make  me. 

Of  which  more  anon. 

For  the  present  I  see  myself  alone  in  the  back  drawing- 
room  of  No.  16  Keppel  Street,  in  which  room  the  family 
breakfast  took  place  —  probably  to  avoid  the  necessity  of 
lighting  another  fire  in  the  dining-room  below — at  7  a.m., 
on  my  knees  before  the  sofa,  Avith  my  head  in  my  hands 
and  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  "Eton  Latin  Grammar"  laid  on 
the  sofa-cushion  before  me.  INIy  parents  had  not  yet  come 
down  to  breakfast,  nor  had  the  tea-urn  been  brought  up 
by  the  footman.  JVota  bene. — My  father  was  a  poor  man, 
and  his  establishment  altogether  on  a  modest  footing. 
But  it  never  would  have  occurred  to  him  or  to  my  mother 
that  they  could  get  on  without  a  man-servant  in  livery. 
And  though  this  liveried  footman  served  a  family  in  which 
two  tallow  candles,  with  their  snuffer-dish,  supplied  the 
Avhole  illumination  of  the  evening,  had  the  livery  been  an 
invented  own  instead  of  that  jtroper  to  the  family,  the  cir- 
cumstance would  have  been  an  absurdity  exciting  the 
ridicule  of  all  the  society  in  which  my  parents  lived. 
Teinpora  iniitantur!  Certainly,  at  the  present  day,  an 
equally  unpretending  household  would  be  burdened  by  no 
footman.  IJut  on  the  morning  which  memory  is  recalling 
to  me  the  footman  was  coming  up  with  the  urn,  and  my 
parents  were  coming  down  to  breakfast,  i)robably  simul- 
taneously; and  the  question  of  the  hour  was  whether  I 
could  get  the  due  relationship  of  relative  and  antecedent 
into  my  littU;  head  before  the  two  events  arrived. 

And  that,  as  I  rcnu'inber  it,  was  the  almost  unvaried 
routine  for  more  than  a  year  or  two.  I  liiink,  however, 
that  the  walks  of  which  I  was  speaking  when  tiiis  retro- 
spect presented  itself  to  me  must  have  belonged  to  a  time 


4  WHAT   I   REMEMBER 

a  little,  bnt  not  much,  later;  for  I  had  then  advanced  to 
the  making  of  Latin  verses.  We  used  to  begin  in  those 
da^'s  by  making  "nonsense  verses."  And  many  of  us 
ended  in  the  same  way!  The  next  step — Gradus  ad Par- 
nassian  —  consisted  in  turning  into  Latin  verse  certain 
English  materials  provided  for  the  purpose,  and  so  cun- 
ningly prepared  as  to  fall  easily  and  almost  inevitably  into 
the  required  form.  And  these  were  the  studies  which,  as 
I  specially  remember,  were  the  subject  of  rehearsal  during 
those  walks  from  Lincoln's  Inn  to  Keppel  Street. 

My  father  was  in  the  habit  of  returning  from  his  cham- 
bers to  a  five-o'clock  dinner  —  rather  a  late  hour,  because 
he  was  an  industrious  and  laborious  man.  Well !  we,  that 
is,  my  next  brother  (not  the  one  whose  name  became  sub- 
sequently well  kTiown  in  the  world,  but  my  brother  Henry, 
who  died  earh')  and  myself,  used  to  Avalk  from  Keppel 
Street  to  Lincoln's  Inn,  so  as  to  arrive  in  time  to  walk 
back  with  my  father.  He  was  a  fast  w^alker;  and  as  we 
trotted  along,  one  on  each  side  of  him,  the  repetition  of 
our  morning's  poetical  achievements  did  not  tend,  as  I 
well  remember,  to  facilitate  the  difficulty  of  "  keeping  our 
wind." 

But  what  has  probably  fixed  all  this  in  my  mind  during 
nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century  was  my  father's  pat  ap- 
plication of  one  of  our  lines  to  the  difficulties  of  those  per- 
ipatetic poetizings.  "  Muse  and  sound  of  icheel  do  not 
well  agree^''  read  the  cunningly  prepared  original,  which 
the  alumnus,  with  wonderful  sagacity,  was  to  turn  into, 
"  N'on  bene  conveniunt  lltisa  rotceque  sonus.''''  "  That," 
said  my  father,  as  he  turned  sharp  round  the  corner  into 
the  comparative  quiet  of  Featherstone  Buildings,  "is  ex- 
actly why  I  turned  out  of  Holborn!" 

I  do  not  know  whether  children  of  eight  years  old,  or 
thereabouts,  would  at  the  present  day  be  allowed  to  range 
London  so  freely  as  we  were.  But  owy  great  amusement 
and  delight  was  to  take  long  exploring  walks  in  as  distant 
parts  of  the  huge  (though  then  comparatively  small)  city 
as  could  be  compassed  within  the  time  at  our  disposition. 
One  especially  favorite  excursion,  I  well  remember,  was 
to  the  White  Horse  Cellar  in  Piccadilly  to  see  the  coaches 


EARLY   DAYS  IN  LONDON.  5 

Start  or  arrive.  I  knew  all  their  names,  and  their  sup- 
posed corai)arative  speed.  By  this  means,  indeed,  came 
my  first  introduction  to  English  geography.  Formal  les- 
sons on  such  a  thoroughly  "  commercial  academy"  subject 
were  not,  of  course,  thought  of  for  an  aspiring  Wykeham- 
ist. But  for  the  due  enjoyment  of  the  White  Horse  Cel- 
lar spectacle  it  was  necessary  to  know  the  whereabouts  of 
the  cities,  their  distance  from  London,  and  the  routes  by 
which  they  were  reached.  It  thus  came  to  pass  that  our 
geographical  notions  were  of  a  curiously  partial  descri])- 
tion — tolerably  copious  and  accurate  as  regards  the  south 
and  west  of  England,  far  less  so  as  regards  the  north;  for 
the  north-country  coaches  did  not  start  from  Piccadilly. 
On  the  opposite  side  of  the  way  to  the  AVhite  Horse  Cellar 
there  was  another  coaching  inn,  the  White  Bear,  on  Avhich 
I  remember  we  used  to  look  with  much  contempt,  from 
the  belief,  Avhether  in  any  degree  well  founded  I  know  not, 
that  the  coaches  which  stopped  there  on  their  way  out  of 
town,  or  arrived  there,  were  mainly  slow  coaches. 

One  does  not  traverse  MX'll-nigh  fourscore  years  with- 
out having  experienced  longings  for  the  unattainable  on 
several  occasions.  But  I  have  no  remembrance  of  any 
such  eager,  craving  longing  as  the  chronic  longing  of  those 
days  to  make  one  of  the  great-coated  companies  who  were 
departing  to  their  various  destinations  by  those  "Tele- 
graphs," "High-Flyers,"  "Magnets,"  and  "Independents." 
(The  more  suggestive  names  of  the  "  Wonder,"  and  its 
rival  the  "  No  Wonder  !"  once  celebrated  on  the  north- 
western road,  belonged  to  a  later  day.)  Had  I  been  ofTorcd 
a  seat  on  any  of  these  vehicles  my  choice  would  have  been 
dictated  solely  by  considerations  of  distance  —  Falmouth 
for  choice,  as  the  westward  Ultima  Thule  of  coaching  ex- 
perience. With  what  rapture  should  I  have  climbed,  in 
my  little  round  jacket  as  I  was,  and  without  a  thought  of 
any  other  jtrotcctinn,  to  the  roof  of  the  Falmouth  mail 
—  thi;  mail  f<jr  choice,  the  Devonport  Quicksilver  being 
then  in  the  w<»mb  of  the  future — and  started  to  fetch  a 
forgotten  letter  (say)  of  the  utmost  importance,  with  strict 
injunctions  to  bring  it  back  by  the  returning  coach  !  I 
don't  think  my  imagination  hail  yet  soare<l  to  the  su])reme 


6  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

slories  of  the  box-seat.     That  came  later.     To  have  been 
a  booked  passenger,  that  that  horn  shouhl  have  sounded 
for  me,  that  I  should  have  been  included  in  the  guard's 
final  and  cheery  assurance  that  at  length  all  was  "  right " 
— would  have  been  amjjle  enough  for  an  ecstacy  of  happi- 
ness.    What  an  endless  vista  of  ever-changing  miles  of 
country  !    What  an  infinite  succession  of  "  teams  " !    What 
a  delicious  sense  of  belonging  to  some  select  and  specially 
important  and    adventurous  section  of   humanity  as  we 
should  clatter  at  midnight,  or  even  at  three  or  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  through  the  streets  of  quiet  little  country 
towns,  ourselves  the  only  souls  awake  in  all  the  place  ! 
What  speculations  as  to  the  immediate  bestowal  and  occu- 
pation of  the  coachman,  when  he  "  left  you  here,  sir  !"  in 
the  small  hours  !     What  a  delightful  sense  of  the  possible 
dangers  of  the  undertaking  as  testified  by  many  eagerly 
read  narratives  of  the  disasters  of  the  road.    Alas!  I  had 
no  share  in  it  all,  save  to  stand  on  the  curbstone  amid  the 
crowd  of  Jew  boys  selling  oranges  and  cedar  pencils  six- 
pence a  dozen,  and  hurrying  passengers  and  guards  and 
porters,  and  look  on  them  all  with  envious  longing. 

N^ota  bene.  On  such  an  occasion  at  the  present  day — if 
it  be  possible  to  conceive  such  an  anachronism — the  Jew 
boys  above  referred  to  would  be  probably  Christian  boys, 
and  the  object  of  their  commerce  the  evening  papers. 
])ut  I  have  no  recollection  of  any  such  element  in  the  scene 
at  the  White  Horse  Cellar  some  sixty-eight  years  since. 

Occasionally  when  a  holiday  from  lessons  occurred — I 
am  afraid  most  probably  in  consequence  of  my  father 
being  confined  to  his  bed  with  headaches,  which  even  at 
that  early  day,  and  increasingly,  as  years  went  on,  afi3icted 
hira — we,  ray  brother  Henry  and  I,  obtained  permission 
for  a  longer  ramble.  I  have  no  recollection  that  on  these 
occasions  either  the  parks  (unless,  perhaps  sometimes  St. 
James's  Park),  or  Kensington  Gardens,  or  Ilampstead,  or 
Ilighgate,  or  any  of  the  places  that  might  be  supposed  to 
be  attractive,  had  any  attractions  for  us.  Our  faces  were 
ever  turned  eastward.  The  city  with  its  narrow,  mysteri- 
ous lanes,  and  still  more  mysterious  wharves,  its  quaint 
secluded  churches,  its  Guildhall,  and  its  Gog  and  Magog, 


EARLY   DAYS   IX   LONDON.  7 

the  queer  localities  of  the  halls  of  its  companies,  and  spe- 
cially the  abstruse  mystery  of  that  venerable  Palladium,the 
London  stone,  excited  in  those  days  an  irresistible  influence 
on  my  imagination.  But  above  all  else  the  grand  object 
of  a  much-planned  eastern  pilgrimage  was  the  docks  ! — 
with  the  outgoing  ships  bearing,  tied  to  their  shrouds, 
boards  indicating  their  destinations.  Here  again  was  un- 
satisfied longing !  But  it  was  a  longing  more  tempered 
by  awe  and  uncertainty.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  would,  if 
it  had  been  offered  to  me,  have  stepped  on  board  an  East 
Indiaman  bound  for  Bombay  as  eagerly  as  I  would  have 
climbed  a  coach  starting  for  the  Land's  End.  But  it  was 
a  great  triumph  to  have  seen  with  our  own  eyes  the  Agra 
(or  some  other)  Castle  majestically  passing  through  the 
dock  gates,  while  passengers  on  deck,  men  and  women, 
whose  feet  would  absolutely  touch  land  no  more  till  they 
stopped  at  far  Bombay  on  the  other  side  of  the  world, 
spoke  last  farewells  to  friends  standing  on  the  dock  walls 
or  even  on  the  gates  themselves. 

But  I  can  recall  no  less  vividly  certain  expeditions  of  a 
kind  which  appeared  to  our  imaginations  to  be— and  which, 
perhaps,  really  were  in  some  degree — fraught  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  peril.  Stories  had  reached  us  of  sundry 
mysteriously  wicked  regions,  where  the  bandit  bands  of 
the  great  city  consorted  and  lived  outlaw  lives  under  cir- 
cumstances and  conditions  that  powerfully  excited  our 
young  imagination.  Especially  accounts  of  a  certain  lane 
had  reaclu'd  us,  where  it  was  said  all  the  i)Ocket-handker- 
chiefs  stolen  by  all  the  piekjjockets  in  London  were  to  be 
seen  exposed  in  a  sort  of  unholy  market.  The  name  of 
this  place  was  Saffron  Ilill.  Whether  any  such  place  still 
exists,  I  know  not.  It  has  probably  been  swept  away  by 
the  march  oi  recent  imiirovenK'nt.  But  it  did  in  those 
days  veritably  exist.  And  to  this  extraordinary  spot — as 
remfite  and  strange  to  our  fancy  as  the  realms  of  Prester 
j,j1,„ — it  was  determined,  after  protracted  consideration 
by  my  brother  and  myself,  that  our  next  long  ramble 
should  be  <levoted.  We  had  ascertained  that  the  dingy 
land  of  our  researches  lay  somewhat  \o  the  westward  of 
Smith  field — which  had  already  been  the  object  of  a  most 


8  WHAT   I   KEMEMBER. 

successful,  adventurous,  and  deligbtful  expedition,  not 
without  pleasurable  perils  of  its  own  from  excited  dro- 
vers and  their  dogs — and  by  dint  of  considerable  persever- 
ance we  reached  it,  and  were  richly  rewarded  for  our  toil 
and  enterprise.  Report  had  spoken  truly.  Saffron  Hill 
was  a  world  of  jDOcket-handkerchiefs.  From  every  win- 
dow, and  on  lines  stretched  across  the  narrow  street,  they 
fluttered  in  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  and  of  all  sizes 
and  qualities.  The  whole  lane  was  a  long  vista  of  pennon- 
like pocket-handkerchiefs !  We  should  have  much  liked 
to  attempt  to  deal  in  this  strange  market,  not  so  much  for 
the  sake  of  possessing  any  of  the  articles,  as  with  a  view 
of  obtaining  experience,  and  informing  ourselves  respect- 
ing the  manners  and  customs  of  the  country.  But  we 
were  protected  from  the  possibly  unpleasant  results  of  any 
such  tentative  by  the  total  absence  from  our  pockets  of 
any  coin  of  the  realm.  We  doubtless  had  pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, and  I  have  no  recollection  of  their  having  been 
stolen.  Probably  it  was  ascertained  by  the  inhabitants 
that  they  were  not  worth  their  notice. 

But  the  subject  reminds  me  of  an  experience  of  the 
pocket-picking  world  which  occurred  to  me  some  twenty 
years  later.  It  was  at  Naples.  People  generally  in  those 
days  carried  silk  pocket-handkerchiefs  instead  of  the  scraps 
of  muslin  which  are  affected  nowadays.  And  five  silk 
pocket-handkerchiefs  were  abstracted  from  my  pockets 
during  my  walks  abroad  in  as  many  days.  I  then  took 
to  wearing  very  common  ones,  and  lost  no  more  !  An 
American  then  at  Naples,  whose  experiences  of  the  pro- 
clivities of  that  population  had  been  similar  to  mine,  was 
not  so  fortunate  in  the  result  of  the  defensive  measures  he 
adopted.  He  sewed  strongly  into  the  interior  of  his  pocket 
a  large  fish-hook.  The  result  which  he  anticipated  fol- 
lowed. The  thief's  hand  was  caught,  and  the  American, 
turning  sharply,  seized  him  by  the  wrist  and  held  him  in  a 
grasp  like  a  vise  till  he  could  hand  him  over  to  a  gen- 
darme. But  within  a  fortnight  that  American  was  stabbed 
to  the  heart  one  night  as  he  was  going  home  from  the 
theatre.  The  light-fingered  fraternity,  it  would  seem,  con- 
sidered that  such  a  practice  was  not  within  the  laws  of  the 


EARLY  DATS   IN  LONDOX.  9 

game  ;  whereas  my  more  moderate  ruse  did  not  offend 
their  sense  of  justice  and  fair-play. 

My  brother  and  I  reached  home  safely  enough  after  our 
expedition  to  thief -land;  and  were  inexhaustible  in  our 
accounts  of  the  wonders  we  had  witnessed.  For  it  formed 
no  part  of  our  plan,  and  would  not  have  been  at  all  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  general  practice  of  our  lives,  to  conceal 
the  facts  from  our  parents.  Probably  we  had  a  sufficient 
suspicion  of  the  questionable  nature  of  the  expedition  we 
contemplated  to  prevent  us  from  declaring  it  beforehand. 
But  our  education  and  habits  would  have  forbidden  any 
dream  of  concealing  it. 

As  far  as  my  recollection  serves  me,  our  moral  and  re- 
ligious education  led  us  to  consider  the  whole  duty  of  boy 
to  be  summed  up  in  the  two  precepts  "  obey  "  and  "  tell 
no  lies."  I  think  there  was  a  perfunctory  saying  of  some 
portion  of  the  catechism  on  a  Sunday  morning.  But  I  am 
very  sure  that  in  our  own  minds,  and  apparently  in  those 
of  all  concerned,  the  vastly  superior  importance  of  the 
Virgil  lesson  admitted  of  no  moment's  doubt.  But  it  must 
not  be  imagined  from  this  that  my  parents  were  more  ir- 
religious people  than  their  neighbors ;  still  less  that  they 
were  not  most  affectionately  and,  indeed,  supremely  solic- 
itous for  the  well-being  and  education  of  their  children. 
My  father  was  the  son  of  a  priest  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  my  mother  the  daughter  of  another,  the  Rev. 
William  Milton,  Vicar  of  Ileckfield,  a  New  College  living 
not  far  from  Reading.  Their  associates  were  mainly  bar- 
risters or  clergy.  My  father  was  wholly  and  absolutely 
free  from  the  prevailing  vice  of  the  time,  and  I  never 
remember  to  have  seen  him  in  any  slightest  degree  the 
worse  for  drink.  And  in  the  whole  nianihre  cVHtre  of  the 
house  and  home  there  was  no  note  or  symptom  of  any  life 
save  one  of  the  most  correct  respectability  and  propriety, 
fully  up  to  tlie  average  of  the  time.  But  my  parents  were 
by  no  means  what  was  called  in  the  language  of  the  time 
"evangelicals."  And  in  the  social  atmosphere  of  those 
days,  any  more  deci<led  and  marked  amount  of  religious 
instruction  and  teaching  would  have  unmistakably  indi- 
cated "evangelical  tendencies."  Moreover,  though  I  can- 
1* 


10  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

not  remember,  and  it  is  exceedingly  improbable,  that  any 
ideas  were  directly  in^>tilled  into  our  minds  on  the  subject, 
it  certainly  is  the  fact  that  I  grew  into  boyhood  with  the 
notion  that  "  evangelicalism,"  or  "  low  churchism,"  was  a 
note  of  vulgarity — a  sort  of  thing  that  might  be  expected 
to  be  met  with  in  tradesmen's  back  parlors,  and  "acade- 
mies," where  the  youths  who  came  from  such  places  were 
instructed  in  English  grammar  and  arithmetic,  but  was 
not  to  be  met  with,  and  was  utterly  out  of  place,  among 
gentlemen  and  in  gentlemanlike  places  of  education, 
where  nothing  of  the  kind  was  taught. 

All  this  to  mark  the  change  of  tempora  and  mores,  in 
these  as  in  so  many  other  respects,  since  George  the  Third 
was  king. 

Among  the  few  surviving  remembrances  of  those  child- 
hood's years  in  Keppel  Street,  I  can  still  recall  to  the 
mind's  eye  the  face  and  features  of  "  Farmer,"  the  highly 
trustworthy  and  responsible  iniddle-aged  woman  who  ruled 
the  nursery  there,  into  which  a  rapid  succession  of  broth- 
ers and  sisters  was  being  introduced  in  those  years.  Farm- 
er, as  I  remember  her,  inspired  more  awe  than  affection. 
She  was  an  austere  and  somewhat  grim  sort  of  body.  And 
somehow^  or  other  the  obscurely  terrible  fact  that  she  was 
an  Anabaptist  (!)  had  reached  the  world  of  the  nursery. 
I  need  hardly  say  that  the  accusation  carried  with  it  no 
sort  of  idea  whatever  to  our  minds.  I  don't  think  we  had 
any  knowledge  that  the  mystic  term  in  question  had  refer- 
ence to  any  forms  or  modifications  of  religious  belief.  But 
we  were  well  assured  that  it  implied  something  mysterious 
and  terrible.  And  I  am  afraid  that  we  gracelessly  availed 
ourselves  of  what  we  should  have  considered  a  misfortune, 
if  we  had  at  all  known  what  it  meant,  to  express,  on  occa- 
sions of  revolt  against  discipline,  our  scorn  for  an  indi- 
vidual so  disgraced  by  nature.  I  have  still  in  ray  ear  the 
lilt  of  a  wicked  chorus  the  burden  of  which  ran: 
"  Old  Farmer  is  an  Ana\iA\>tist ! 
When  she  is  gone,  she  will  not  be  missed  !  " 

I  remember,  in  connection  with  poor  Farmer  and  her 

heresies,  an  incident  which  must  have  been  ridiculous 
enough  to  the  adult  actors  in  it.     Dr.  Nott,  one  of  the 


EARLY   DAYS  IN   LONDON.  11 

prebendaries  of  Winchester, was  an  old  and  intimate  friend 
of  ray  mother's— bad  been  such,  I  believe,  before  her  mar- 
riage. The  mention  of  this  gentleman  recalls  to  my  mind 
— but  this  recollection  dates  from  a  later  day — that  it  used 
to  be  said  satirically,  with  what  truth  I  Avill  not  attempt 
to  guess,  that  there  was  a  large  Chapter  at  Winchester 
and  JSfott,  one  of  them,  a  clergyman:  the  intention  being 
to  insinuate  that  he  was  the  only  properly  clerical  charac- 
ter among  them.  At  all  events.  Dr.  Nott  was  an  exem- 
plary dignitary  of  the  Church,  not  only  in  character,  tastes, 
and  pursuits,  but  in  outward  presentment  also.  I  remem- 
ber well  his  spare  figure,  his  pale  and  delicately  cut  feat- 
ures, his  black  gaiters  to  the  knee,  and  his  elaborate  white 
neckcloth.  lie  was  a  competent,  and  what  would  have 
been  called  in  that  day  an  "  elegant,"  Italian  scholar.  It 
was  wholly  under  his  supervision  that,  a  few  years  subse- 
quently, the  extensive  restoration  and  repair  of  Winchester 
Cathedral  was  executed;  a  supervision  which  cost  him,  in 
consequence  of  a  fall  from  a  ladder  in  the  nave,  a  broken 
leg  and  subsequent  lameness  for  life.  He  had,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  been  one  of  the  tutors  of  the  Princess  Charlotte. 
Well,  upon  one  occasion  of  a  visit  of  Dr.  Nott's  in  Kcp- 
pel  Street,  we  children  were  summoned  to  the  drawing- 
room  for  his  inspection  ;  and  in  reply  to  a  variety  of  ques- 
tions as  to  progress,  and  goodness  in  the  nursery,  etc.,  I, 
as  the  eldest,  took  courage  to  reply  that  if  we  were  not 
always  as  good  and  obedient  in  the  nursery  as  might  be 
desired,  the  circumstance  was  to  be  attributed  lo  the  pain- 
ful fact  that  our  nurse  was  an  Anabaptist !  Wlutlier  Dr. 
Nott  was  selected  as  the  recipient  of  this  confidential 
communication  because  I  had  any  vague  idea  that  this 
disgraceful  circumstance  had  any  special  connection  w  iili 
his  department  of  human  afiairs,  I  cannot  say.  We  were, 
however,  told  that  the  fact  was  nowise  inconijiatible  with 
Farnu;r's  eliaracter  as  an  excellent  nurse  and  good  servant, 
and  least  of  all  could  be  considered  as  absolving  us  from 
the  duty  of  obedience.  I  remembered  that  I  woiulered 
then — and  I  wonder  still — what  passed  upon  the  subject 
between  my  mother  and  the  doctor  after  our  dismissal  to 
the  nursery. 


12  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Another  intimate  friend  of  my  mother's  and  frequent 
visitor  in  Keppel  Street  was  Lady  Dyer,  the  wife,  and 
subsequently  widow,  of  General  Sir  Thomas  Dyer.  Sir 
Thomas  resided  on  his  estate  of  Ovington,  near  Winches- 
ter ;  and  I  take  it  that  my  mother's  intimacy  with  Lady 
Dyer  had  been  brought  about  by  the  friendship  existing 
between  both  ladies  and  Miss  Gabell,  the  eldest  daughter 
of  Dr.  Gabell,  the  head-master  of  Winchester  College. 
Lady  Dyer,  after  several  years  of  widowhood,  married  the 
Baron  de  Zandt;  and  I  remember,  very  many  years  subse- 
quently to  the  time  that  I  am  here  writing  of,  visiting  her 
with  my  mother  at  her  schloss,  near  Bamberg,  where  she 
lived  in  the  husje  house  alone  after  losing  her  second  hus- 
band. 

I  fancy  it  was  mainly  due  to  her  intimacy  with  my 
mother  during  those  years  in  Keppel  Street  that  the 
house  was  frequented  by  several  Italians  ;  exiles  from 
their  own  country  under  stress  of  political  troubles.  Es- 
pecially I  remember  among  these  General  Guglielmo  Pepe, 
subsequently  the  hero  of  the  hopeless  defence  of  Venice 
against  the  Austrians.  Of  course  I  was  too  young  to  know 
or  see  much  of  him  in  the  Keppel  Street  daj's;  but  many 
years  afterwards  I  had  abundant  opportunities  of  know- 
ing Pepe's  genuine  nobility  of  character,  high  honor,  and 
ardent  patriotism.  He  was  a  remarkably  handsome  man, 
but  not  a  brilliant  or  amusing  companion.  I  remember 
that  his  sobriquet  among  the  three  ladies  mentioned  to- 
gether above  was  Gateau  de  Plomb/  But  none  the  less 
was  he  highly  and  genuinely  respected  by  them.  He  had 
a  kind  of  simple,  dignified,  placid  manner  of  enunciating 
the  most  astounding  platitudes,  and  replying  to  the  laugh- 
ter they  sometimes  produced  by  a  calm,  gentle  smile,  which 
showed  how  impossible  it  was  for  his  simple  soul  to  im- 
agine that  his  hearers  were  otherwise  than  delighted  with 
his  wit  and  wisdom.  How  well  I  can  remember  the  pleas- 
ure his  visits  were  wont  to  afford  in  the  nursery  by  reason 
of  the  dried  Neapolitan  figs  and  Mandarin  oranges,  which 
he  used  to  receive  from  his  brother.  General  Fiorestano 
Pepe,  and  never  failed  to  distribute  among  his  English 
friends.     His  brother,  when  Guglielmo  threw  in  his  lot 


EARLY   DAYS  IN   LONDON.  13 

with  the  "patriots,"  never  forfeited  his  allegiance  or  quar- 
relled with  the  King  of  Naples.  Yet  the  two  brothers 
continued  on  affectionately  fraternal  terms  to  the  last. 

The  quiet  course  of  those  Keppel  Street  years  was,  as  I 
remember,  once  or  twice  broken  by  the  great  event  of  a 
visit  to  Heckfield  to  my  maternal  grandfather,  the  Rev. 
William  Milton,  a  ci-devant  fellow  of  Kew  College.  He 
Lad  at  that  time  married  a  second  wife,  a  Miss  Partington, 
his  first  wife,  a  Derbyshire  Gresley,  my  maternal  grand- 
mother, whom  I  had  never  seen,  having  died  young.  As 
my  grandfather  Milton  was  the  son  of  a  Bristol  saddler 
(who  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety-nine),  I  suppose  his  mar- 
riage with  a  Gresley  must  have  been  deemed  a  mesalliance 
for  the  lady.  But  her  death  having  occurred  before  my 
time,  I  never  heard  anything  of  this. 

The  Vicar  of  Heckfield  held  the  adjoining  chapelry  of 
Mattingly,  at  which  place  the  morning  service  was  per- 
formed on  alternate  Suudaj's.  He  was  an  excellent  parish 
priest  after  the  fashion  of  his  day;  that  is  to  say,  he  was 
kindly  to  all,  liberal  to  the  poor  to  the  utmost  extent  of 
his  means,  and  well  beloved  by  his  neighbors,  high  and 
low.  He  was  a  charming  old  man,  markedly  gentleman- 
like and  suave  in  his  manner;  very  nice  in  his  person; 
clever  unquestionably  in  a  queer,  crotchety  sort  of  waj'; 
and  thoroughly  minded  to  do  his  duty  according  to  his 
lights  in  that  state  of  life  to  which  it  had  pleased  God  to 
call  him.  But  he  would  have  had  no  more  iilea  of  attempt- 
ing anything  of  the  nature  of  active  parochial  work  or  re- 
form, as  understood  at  the  present  day,  than  he  would 
have  had  of  scheming  to  pay  the  national  debt.  Indeed, 
the  latter  would  have  been  the  more  likely  to  occupy  his 
mind  of  the  two,  for  he  was  orolchety  and  full  of  schemes. 
Especially  he  was  fond  of  mechanics,  and  spent  much 
money  and  much  labor  during  many  years  on  a  favorite 
scheme  for  obviating  the  danger  arising  from  the  liability 
of  a  stage-coach  to  be  upset.  He  ])ublished  more  than  one 
pamphlet  on  the  subject,  illustrated — I  can  see  the  pages 
before  me  now — by  designs  of  various  (lueer-looking  mod- 
els. There  was  a  large  coach-house  attached  to  the  vicar- 
age, an<l  it  was  always  full  of  the  strangest  collection  of 


14  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

models  of  coaches.  I  remember  avcII  that  they  all  ap- 
peared to  me  hideous,  and  as  resthetically  inferior  to  my 
admired  Telegraphs  and  iris:h-Fl3"crs  as  a  modern  iron- 
clad seems  to  the  three-decker  of  his  youth  in  the  eyes 
of  an  old  sailor.  But,  as  may  be  imagined,  I  never  vent- 
ured to  broach  any  such  heresy  in  my  grandfather's  hear- 
ing !  I  should  unquestionably  have  done  so  had  it  been 
my  father.  But  lesser  acquaintanceship  and  the  venerable 
asre  of  my  crrandfather  checked  mv  presumption. 

There  was — and  doubtless  is — a  very  pretty  evergreen- 
embowered  lawn  at  the  vicarage,  and  on  this  also  there 
always  used  to  be  some  model  or  other  intended  to  illus- 
trate the  principles  of  traction.  One  I  especially  remem- 
ber which  was  called  (not,  it  may  seem,  very  grammati- 
cally) rotis  volventihus.  This  machine  consisted  of  two 
huge  wheels,  some  ten  feet  high,  joined  together  by  a 
number  of  cross-bars  at  a  distance  of  a  foot  or  so  from 
each  other.  It  will  be  understood  what  a  delightful 
amusement  it  must  have  been  to  creep  into  the  interior 
of  this  structure,  and  cause  it  to  roll  over  the  smoothly- 
shaven  turf  by  stepping  treadmill  fashion  on  the  cross- 
bars one  after  the  other.  But  unfortunately  in  one  part 
of  the  lawn  there  was  a  steep  declivity,  and  one  day,  when 
the  idea  of  making  rotis  volventihus  descend  this  slope  be- 
came irresistible,  there  was  a  tremendous  smashing  of  the 
evergreen  hedge,  and  a  black-and-blue  little  body,  whose 
escape  without  broken  bones  was  deemed  truly  prodig- 
ious. 

"Never,  Tom,"  said  my  grandfather,  "put  in  motion 
forces  which  you  are  unable  to  control !" 

The  words  remained  implanted  in  my  memory.  But  I 
do  not  suppose  they  carried  much  instruction  with  them 
to  my  mind  at  the  time. 

I  believe  my  grandfather  spent  more  money  on  his  me- 
chanical fads  than  was  quite  prudent,  and  took  out  patents 
which  were  about  as  remunerative  and  useful  as  that  which 
Charles  the  Second  is  said  to  have  granted  to  a  sailor  who 
stood  on  his  head  on  the  top  of  Salisbury  steeple,  securing 
to  him  the  monopoly  of  that  practice  ! 

I  remember  another   eccentricity  in   which   the  vicar 


EARLY   DAYS   IN   LONDON.  15 

indulged.  He  said  tbe  contact  of  a  knife's  edge  with 
eartben\yare,  or  porcelain,  -was  extremely  disagreeable. 
He  caused,  therefore,  a  number  of  dinner  plates  to  be 
made  with  a  little  circular  depression  some  two  inches 
in  diameter  and  about  as  deep  as  a  crown  piece  in  the  cen- 
tre, and  had  some  round  pieces  of  silver  to  fit  into  these 
receptacles,  on  which  he  cut  his  meat. 

He  was  withal  a  very  popular  man,  a  good  scholar,  with 
decidedly  scholarly  tastes,  much  of  a  mathematician,  a 
o-enuine  humorist,  with  a  sort  of  Horatian  easy-going 
geniality  about  him  which  was  very  charming  even  to  us 
boys. 

My  brother  Henry  was  one  year  my  junior;  my  brother 
Anthony,  with  whom  the  Avorld  subsequently  became  ac- 
quainted, was  five  years  younger  than  I.  Henry,  there- 
fore, was  the  companion  of  all  the  London  rambles  which 
have  been  mentioned.  I  think  we  Avere  tolerably  good 
boys,  truthful  and  obedient  to  legitimate  authority.  I 
was,  however,  if  nursery  traditions  of  a  somewhat  later 
day  may  be  accepted  as  embodying  real  facts,  rather  too 
much  given  to  yielding  obedience  only  on  reason  shown; 
to  "arfififv,"  as  certain  authoritarians  are  wont  to  call  it; 
and  to  make  plenary  submission  only  when  consciously 
defeated  in  argument. 

We  had  little  or  nothing  of  the  "amusements"  nowa- 
days 80  liberally  supplied  to  childn-n.  There  was  the 
pantomime  at  Christmas,  intensely  enjoyed.  And  I  re- 
member well  pondering  on  the  insoluble  question  why  my 
parents,  who  evidently,  I  thought,  could,  if  they  chose  it, 
go  to  the  theatre  every  night  of  their  lives,  should  abstain 
from  doing  so. 

I  do  not  remember  any  discontented  longings  for  more 
or  other  amusements  than  we  had.  I  was  a  thoroughly 
well  constituted  and  healthy  child,  but  without  tlie  small- 
est pretension  to  good  looks,  either  in  esse  or  in  posse  ; 
sturdily  built,  with  flaxen  head,  rosy  cheeks,  and  blue 
evf's;  broad  of  hand  and  foot;  strong  as  a  little  pony — a 
verital)le  Saxon  in  type.  I  seem  to  my  recollections  to 
have  been  somewhat  bravely  ready  to  accept  a  lifi'  in 
which  the  kicks  might  be  more  superabundant  than  the 


16  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Lalf-peuce  not  without  complacent  mental  reference  to 
the  moral  and  physical  breadth  of  shoulders,  ready  for 
whatever  fate  might  lay  on  them.  The  nature  of  my 
childish  mind,  as  I  remember,  was  to  j)lace  its  ideas  of 
heroism  in  capacity  for  uncomplaining  endurance,  rather 
than  in  capability  for  mastering  others. 

All  the  usual  childish  complaints  and  maladies  touched 
me  very  lightly.  I  was  as  indifferent  to  weather,  wet  or 
dry,  wind  or  shine,  as  a  Shetland  pony.  Feet  wet  through 
had  to  remain  in  statu  quo  till  they  were  dry  again.  As- 
siduously taught  by  my  mother,  I  read  at  a  very  early 
age.  Her  plan  for  teaching  the  letters  was  as  follows. 
She  had  a  great  number  of  bone  counters  Avith  the  alpha- 
bet in  capitals  and  small  letters  on  either  side  printed  on 
them;  then  having  invited  a  charming  little  girl,  the 
daughter  of  a  neighbor  (Katie  Gibbon,  laid  to  rest  this 
many  a  year  under  the  jx'w-tree  in  the  churchyard  of  the 
village  of  Stanton,  near  Monmouth),  who  was  just  my 
own  age,  she  tossed  the  counters  broadcast  over  the  floor, 
instituting  prizes  for  him,  or  her,  who  should,  in  crawling 
races  over  the  floor,  soonest  bring  the  letter  demanded. 
Reading  thus  began  to  be  an  amusement  to  me  at  an  un- 
usually early  age.  I  believe  I  gave  early  indications  of 
possessing  a  certain  quantum  of  brain  power;  but  had  no 
reputation  for  cleverness.  Indeed,  had  my  parents  ever 
formed  the  opinion  that  any  one  of  their  children  Avas  in 
any  way  markedly  clever,  they  would  have  carefully  con- 
cealed It  from  the  subject  of  it.  I  take  it,  I  was  far  from 
being  Avhat  is  called  a  prepossessing  child.  I  had,  I  well 
remember,  a  reputation  for  an  uncompromising  expres- 
sion of  opinion  which  was  not  altogether  admirable.  My 
mother  used  to  tell  in  after-years  how,  when  once  I  had 
been,  at  about  four  years  old,  attentively  watching  her 
dressing  for  dinner,  while  standing  on  a  chair  by  the  side 
of  her  dressing-table,  I  broke  silence  when  the  work  was 
com))leted  to  say  very  judicially,  "Now  you  have  made 
yourself  as  fine  as  poso"  (possible),  "and  you  look  worse 
than  you  did  when  you  began  !" 

I  am  tempted  to  insert  here  a  letter  to  my  father  from 
Dr.  Williams,  my  old  Winchester  master,  which  (amus- 


EARLY   DAYS   IX   LOXDON.  17 

ingly  to  me)  illustrates  what  I  have  here  written  of  my 
nursery  tendencies.  It  belongs  to  a  later  date,  when  I  was 
within  half  a  year  of  leavinc^  Winchester.  I  had  not  found 
it  among  my  papers  when  I  wrote  the  passage  to  which  it 
is  now  appended.  But  I  place  it  here  in  homage  to  the 
dictum  that  the  child  is  father  to  the  man. 

"  I  have  the  pleasure,"  Dr.  Williams  writes,  "  to  express 
ray  approbation  of  your  son's  conduct  during  the  last  half- 
year.  His  firmness  in  maintaining  what  was  right  and 
putting  down  what  was  wrong  was  very  conspicuous  in 
the  early  part  of  that  time;  not  that  I  imagine  it  was  less 
afterwards,  but  occasion  did  not  call  it  forth  so  much." 

What  the  occasion  was  I  entirely  forget;  evidently  he 
refers  to  some  exercise  of  my  power  as  a  prefect. 

"I  have  remarked  to  you  before  that  he  \s  fond  of  hav- 
ing a  reason  assigned  for  everything;  but  he  must  take 
care  that  this  do  not  degenerate  into  captiousness.  His 
temper  is  generally  good,  but  a  little  too  sensitive  when 
he  fancies  a  smile  is  raised  at  his  expense," 

I  feel  no  confidence  that  years  have  rendered  me  safe 
from  the  first  fault  which  my  excellent  master  thus  warned 
me  against;  but  I  am  sure  they  have  cured  me  of  the 
second. 

I  remember,  too,  in  connection  with  those  Keppel  Street 
days,  to  have  heard  my  mother  speak  of  an  incident  which 
somewhat  curiously  illustrates  the  ways  and  habits  of  a 
time  already  so  far  left  behind  us  by  a  whole  world  of 
social  changes.  It  was  nothing  more  than  a  simple  visit 
to  the  theatre  to  hear  ]Mrs.  Siddons  in  Lady  Macbeth. 
But  this  exploit  involved  circumstances  that  rendered  it 
memorable  for  other  reasons  besides  the  intense  gratifica- 
tion derived  from  the  jx'rformance.  In  the  first  place 
"the  pit"  was  the  destination  to  which  my  father  and 
mother  were  bound;  not  altogether,  I  take  it,  so  much  for 
the  sake  of  the  lower  price  of  admission  (though  my  fa- 
ther was  a  sutficiently  poor  ami  a  sulliciently  careful  in.iii 
to  render  this  a  consideration),  as  from  the  idea  that  the 
pit  ofTcred  the  best  vantage-ground  for  a  thoroughly  ap- 
preciative ami  critical  judgment  of  the  performance.  For 
when  we  children  were  taken  to  sec  a  pantomime  wc  went, 


18  WUAT   I    REMEMBER. 

as  I  remciuLer,  to  the  boxes.  But  this  visit  to  the  pit  in- 
volved the  necessity  of  being  at  the  theatre  at  two  in  tlie 
afternoon,  and  then  stCDiding  in  tlie  crowd  till,  if  I  rightly 
remember,  six  in  the  evening  !  Of  course  food  had  to  be 
carried.  And  each  man  there  did  his  best  to  support  and 
assist  the  lady  under  his  charge.  But  the  ordeal  must 
have  been  something  tremendous,  and  the  amount  of  en- 
thusiasm needed  to  induce  a  lady  to  face  it  something 
scarceh'  to  be  understood  at  the  present  day.  My  mother 
used  to  relate  that  sundry  women  were  carried  out  from 
the  crowd  at  the  theatre  door  fainting. 

Before  closing  this  Keppel  Street  chapter  of  my  exist- 
ence I  may  mention  one  or  two  circumstances  of  the  fam- 
ily life  there  which  illustrate  the  social  habits  of  those 
days.  The  family  dinner-hour  was  five.  There  were  no 
dinner-napkins  to  be  seen  ;  they  were  perhaps  less  needed 
by  clean-shaven  chins  and  lips.  Two  tallow-candles,  re- 
quiring to  be  snuffed  by  snuffers  lying  in  a  little  plated 
tray  ad  hoc  every  now  and  then,  partially  illumined  the 
table,  but  scarcely  at  all  the  more  distant  corners  of  the 
room.  Nor  were  any  more  or  better  lights  used  during 
the  evening  in  the  drawing-room.  The  only  alternative 
would  have  been  wax-lights  at  half  a  crown  a  pound — an 
extravagance  not  to  be  thought  of.  Port  and  sherry  were 
always  placed  on  the  shining  mahogany  table  when  the 
cloth  was  withdrawn,  and  no  other  wine.  Only  on  the 
occasion  of  having  friends  to  dinner  the  port  became  a 
"  magnum  "  of  a  vintage  for  which  my  father's  cellar  was 
famous,  and  possibly  Madeira  might  be  added. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  worth  noting  here,  as  an  incident 
illustrating  change  of  manners,  that  I  vividly  remember 
my  mother  often  singing  to  us  children  in  Kej^pel  Street  an 
old  song  about  an  "  unfortunate  Miss  Bayly,"  who  had  been 
seduced  Ijy  a  "Captain  bold  of  Ilulifax,  who  dwelt  in 
country  quarters."  Now  a  purer  or  more  innocent-mind- 
ed woman  than  my  mother  did  not  live,  nor  one  less  likely 
to  have  suffered  aught  that  she  imagined  to  be  unfitted 
virfjtnibua  puerisque  to  reach  the  ears  of  her  children. 
Nor  do  I  suppose  that  we  had  the  faintest  notion  of  the 
nature  of  the  evil  inflicted  on  the  unfortunate  Miss  Bayly 


EARLY   DAYS   IN    LUXDOX.  19 

by  the  captain  bold,  nor  that  we  were  in  any  degree  scan- 
dalized by  the  subsequent  incident  of  the  parish  priest 
being  bribed  by  "  a  one-pound  note  "  to  accord  Christian 
burial  to  the  corpse  of  a  suicide,  which  he  had  previously 
refused  to  bury.  It  may  be  feared  that  quite  as  many 
"unfortunates"  share  the  fate  of  Miss  Bayly,  either  in 
town  or  country  quarters,  at  the  present  day  as  in  the 
early  days  of  the  century.  But  I  take  it  that  the  old- 
world  ditty  in  question  would  not  be  selected  for  nursery 
use  at  the  present  day. 

I  could  chatter  on  about  those  childish  days  in  Keppel 
Street,  and  have  been,  I  am  afraid,  too  garrulous  already. 
AV^hat  I  have  said,  however,  is  all  illustrative  of  the  social 
changes  seventy  years  have  wrought,  and  may  at  the  same 
time  serve  to  show  that  I  started  on  my  octogenarian  ca- 
reer a  sturdy,  hardy  little  mortal,  non  sine  Dis  animosits 
iufans. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EARLY    DAYS    IN    LONDON — {C07ltmued). 

These  fragmentary  recollections  of  our  childish  days 
may  have  served  to  suggest  some  hints  of  the  changes 
-Nvhich  have  made  the  London  of  the  present  day  almost — 
perhaps  quite — as  different  from  the  London  of  the  second 
decade  of  this  century  as  the  latter  was  from  "  the  town  " 
in  the  days  of  George  the  First.  But  it  is  difficult  for 
middle-aged  people  of  the  present  day  to  form  any  vivid 
and  sufficient  conception  of  the  greatness  of  them.  Of 
course  the  mere  material  ameliorations  and  extensions  have 
so  metamorphosed  the  localities  that  I,  on  returning  after 
long  years  to  the  London  I  once  knew,  topographically  at 
least,  so  well,  find  myself  in  a  new  town,  of  which  the  ge- 
ography is  in  some  parts  strange  to  me,  with  just  so  much 
of  the  old  landmarks  remaining  as  serves  to  suggest  false 
clews  to  the  labyrinth,  and  render  the  matter  more  puzzling. 
But  the  changes  in  ways  and  habits  and  modes  of  living 
and  feeling  and  thinking  are  still  greater  and  of  much  more 
profound  significance. 

To  say  that  there  were  in  those  days  no  omnibuses  and 
no  cabs,  and  of  course  no  railways,  either  under  ground  or 
over  it,  is  a  simple  matter,  and  very  easily  stated.  But  it 
is  not  easy  to  picture  to  one's  self  the  Avhole  meaning  and 
consequences  of  their  non-existence.  Let  any  Londoner, 
with  the  exception  of  the  comparatively  small  number  of 
those  who  use  carriages  of  their  own,  think  what  his  life 
would  be,  and  the  transaction  of  his  day's  work  or  of  his 
day's  pleasure,  without  any  means  of  locomotion  save  his 
own  legs  or  a  hackney-coach,  which,  at  a  cost  of  about 
five  times  the  cab-hire  of  the  present  day,  used  to  shut 
him  up  in  an  atmosphere  like  tiiat  of  a  very  dirty  stable, 
and  jolt  him  over  the  uneven  pavement  at  a  pace  of  about 
four  miles  an  hour.     Dickens  has  given,  in  his  own  graphic 


EARLY   DATS  IN  LOXDOX.  21 

way,  more  than  one  sketch  of  the  old  hackney-coach.  I 
do  not  think  that  I  ever  saw  a  hackney-coach  that  had 
been  built  for  the  work  it  was  engaged  in  as  such.  They 
were  heavy,  old-fashioned,  rickety  vehicles,  which  had  be- 
come too  heavy,  too  old-fashioned,  too  rickety  to  be  re- 
tained in^  the  service  of  the  families  to  which  they  had 
once  belonged.  They  were  built,  for  the  most  part,  with 
hammer-cloths,  and  many  of  them  exhibited  huge  and 
gorgeously-painted  armorial  bearings  on  the  panels.  (By- 
the-bye,  why  did  not  the  officials  of  the  inland  revenue 
come  down  on  the  proprietors  of  these  venerable  vehicles 
for  the  use  of  armorial  bearings  ?  I  take  it  that  the  march 
of  modern  intelligence,  acuens  mortalia  corda,  would  im- 
pel their  successors  of  the  present  day  to  do  so.)  The 
drivers  of  those  carriages  were  "  in  a  concatenation  accord- 
ingly"— shabby,  slow,  stupid,  dirty,  and  often  muddled 
with  drink.  "\Ve  hear  occasionally  nowadays  of  a  cabman 
"  driving  furiously  "  when  drunk.  The  wording  of  the 
charge  smacks  of  another  era.  Not  all  the  gin  in  London 
could  have  stimulated  the  old  "  Jarvey  "  to  drive  his  skel- 
etons of  horses  furiously.  He  was  not  often  incapacitated 
by  drink,  but  very  frequently  muddled.  If  it  was  neces- 
sary for  him  to  descend  from  his  hammer-cloth  for  the 
purpose  of  opening  the  door  of  his  carriage,  which  the 
presence  of  the  "  waterman  "  of  the  stand  for  the  most 
part  rendered  unnecessary,  he  was  a  long  time  about  it, 
and  a  longer  in  clambering  back  to  his  seat,  loaded  as  he 
generally  was  in  all  weathers  with  an  immense  greatcoat 
of  many  capes,  weatherbeaten  out  of  all  resemblance  to 
its  original  color.  The  "  watermen,"  so  called,  as  we  know 
from  high  authority,  "  because  they  opens  the  coach-doors," 
were  nevertheless  surrounded  by  their  half  a  dozen  or  so 
of  little  shallow  pails  of  water,  as  they  stood  by  the  side 
of  the  curbstone  near  a  coach-stand.  They  were  to  the 
hackney-coachman  what  the  bricklayer's  laborer  is  to  the 
bricklayer.  And  a  more  sorry  sight  can  hardly  be  con- 
ceived than  the  "stand"  with  its  broken-down  carriages, 
more  broken-down  drivers,  and,  worst  of  all,  broken-down 
horses,  which  8upj)lied  us  in  the  days  when  we  "called  a 
coach,  and  let  a  coach  be  called,  and  lir  that  calls  it,  let 


22  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

him  he  the  caller,"  as  it  stands  written  in  a  page  almost  as 
much  (but  far  less  deservedly)  forgotten  as  the  hackney- 
coach. 

Already  in  mj-  boyhood  "  Oxford  Road  "  was  beginning 
to  be  called  "  Oxford  Street."  But  my  father  and  his  con- 
temporaries always  used  the  former  phrase.  At  the  end 
of  Oxford  Street  was  Tyburn  turnpike  ;  not  a  mere  name, 
but  a  veritable  barrier,  closing  not  only  the  continuation 
of  the  Oxford  Road,  but  also  the  Edgware  Road,  turning 
at  right  angles  to  the  north  of  it.  And  there  stood  one 
turnpike-man  to  receive  the  toll  and  give  tickets  in  return 
for  the  whole  of  Oxford  Street  traffic  !  I  can  see  him 
now,  Avith  his  low-crowned  hat,  a  straw  in  his  mouth,  his 
vigilant  eye,  and  the  preternatural  quickness  and  coolness, 
as  it  seemed  to  me,  with  which,  standing  in  the  centre  be- 
tween his  two  gates,  he  took  the  half-pence  and  delivered 
the  tickets.  Pie  had  always  an  irreproachably  clean  white 
apron,  with  pockets  in  front  of  it,  one  for  half-pence  and 
one  for  tickets. 

I  have  spoken  of  my  delight  in  the  spectacle  of  the 
coaches  starting  from  and  arriving  at  the  White  Horse  Cel- 
lar in  Piccadilly.  But  there  were  many  other  aspects  of 
London  life  in  the  da3's  before  railroads  in  which  the  coach- 
es made  a  leading  feature.  One  of  the  sights  of  London 
for  country  cousins  was  to  see  the  mails  starting  at  eight 
r.M.  from  the  post-office.  To  view  it  under  the  most  fa- 
vorable circumstances,  one  went  there  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  king's  birthday,  when  all  the  guards  had  their  scar- 
let coats  new,  and  the  horses'  heads  were  all  decked  with 
flowers.  And  truly  the  yard  around  the  post-office  offered 
on  such  an  occasion  a  prettier  sight  than  all  the  travelling 
arrangements  of  the  present  day  could  supply.  Of  course 
I  am  speaking  of  a  time  a  little  subsequent  to  my  earliest 
recollections.  For  I  can  remember  when  the  huge  edifice 
in  Saint  Martin's  le  Grand  was  built;  and  remember  well, 
too,  the  ridicule  and  the  outcry  that  was  raised  at  the  size 
of  the  building,  so  enormously  larger,  it  was  supposed, 
than  could  possibly  be  needed!  But  it  has  now  long  since 
been  found  altogether  insufficient  for  the  needs  of  the  ser- 
vice. 


EARLY   DAYS   IX   LOXDOX.  23 

A  journey  on  the  box  of  the  mail  was  a  great  delight  to 
rae  in  those  days — days  somewhere  in  the  third  decade 
of  the  century  ;  and,  faith  !  I  believe  would  be  still,  if 
there  were  any  mails  available  for  the  purpose.  One  jour- 
ney frequently  perfoi'raed  by  me  with  infinite  delight  was 
to  Exeter.  My  business  was  to  visit  two  old  ladies  liv- 
ing there.  Miss  Mary  and  Miss  Fanny  Bent.  The  Rev. 
John  Bent,  rector  of  Crediton,  had  married  the  sister  of 
my  grandmother,  the  Rev.  William  Milton's  wife.  Miss 
Mary  Bent  was  his  daughter  by  a  second  wife  ;  but  her 
half-sister,  Fanny  Bent,  as  we  and  everybody  else  called 
her,  was  thus  my  mother's  first  cousin,  and  the  tie  be- 
tween Fanny  Milton  and  Fanny  Bent  had  alwaj^s,  from 
their  earliest  years,  been  a  very  close  one. 

And  that  is  how  I  came,  on  several  occasions,  to  find 
myself  on  the  box  of  the  Exeter  mail.  A  new  and  accel- 
erated mail  service  had  been  recently  established  under 
the  title  of  the  Devonport  Mail.  It  was  at  that  time  the 
fastest,  I  believe,  in  England.  Its  performances  caused 
somewhat  of  a  sensation  in  the  coaching  world,  and  it 
was  known  in  those  circles  as  the  Quicksilver  Mail.  Its 
early  days  had  chanced,  unfortunately,  to  be  marked  by 
two  or  three  accidents,  which  naturally  gave  it  an  increased 
celebrity.  And,  truly,  if  it  is  considered  what  those  men 
and  horses  were  required  to  perform,  the  wonder  was,  not 
tliat  the  Quicksilver  should  have  come  to  grief  two  or 
three  times,  but  rather  that  it  ever  made  its  journey  with- 
out doing  so.  What  does  the  railway  traveller  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  wlio  sees  a  travelling  jiost-oflice,  and  its  huge  tend- 
er crainme<l  with  postal  matter,  think  of  the  idea  of  carrv- 
ing  all  that  mass  on  one,  or  perhaps  two,  coaches  ?  The 
guard,  occupying  his  solitary  post  behind  the  coach,  on  the 
top  of  the  receptacle  called,  with  reference  to  the  construc- 
tions of  still  earlier  days,  the  hinder  hoot,  sat  on  a  little 
seat  made  for  one,  with  his  pistols  and  blunderbuss  in  a 
box  in  front  «»f  him.  And  the  original  notion  of  those  who 
first  ])lanned  the  modern  mail-coach  was,  that  the  bags 
containing  the  letters  should  be  carried  in  that  "hinder 
boot."  The  "fore  boot,"  beneath  the  driver's  box,  was 
considered  to  be  apjtropriated  to  the  baggage  of  the  three 


24  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

outside  and  four  inside  passengers,  Avliicli  was  the  mail's 
entire  complement.  One  of  tlie  former  shared  the  box 
with  tlie  driver,  and  two  occupied  the  seat  on  the  roof  be- 
hind him.  The  accommodation  provided  for  these  two 
was  not  of  a  very  comfortable  description.  They  were 
not,  indeed,  crowded  as  the  four  who  occupied  a  similar 
position  on  another  coach  often  were  ;  but  they  had  a 
mere  board  to  sit  on,  whereas  tlie  seats  on  the  roof  of  an 
ordinary  stage-coach  were  provided  with  cushions.  The 
fares  by  the  mail  were  always  somewhat  higher  than  those 
by  even  equally  fast,  or  in  some  cases  faster,  coaches  ;  and 
it  seems  unreasonable,  therefore,  that  the  accommodation 
should  be  inferior.  I  can  only  suppose  that  the  patrons  of 
"  the  mail "  were  understood  to  be  compensated  for  its  ma- 
terial imperfections  by  the  superior  dignity  of  their  posi- 
tion.    The  box-scat,  however,  was  well  cushioned. 

But  if  the  despatches,  which  it  Avas  the  mail's  business 
to  carry,  could  once  upon  a  time  be  contained  in  that 
hinder  boot,  such  had  ceased  to  be  the  case  before  my  day. 
The  bulk  of  postal  matter  which  had  to  be  carried  was 
continually  and  rapidly  increasing,  and  I  have  often  seen 
as  many  as  nine  enormous  sacks  heaped  on  the  coach  roof. 
The  length  of  these  sacks  was  just  sufficient  to  reach  from 
one  side  of  the  coach  to  the  other,  and  the  huge  heap  of 
them,  three  or  even  four  tiers  high,  was  piled  to  a  height 
which  was  sufficient  to  prevent  the  guard,  even  when 
standing,  from  seeing  or  communicating  with  the  coach- 
man. If  to  the  consideration  of  all  this  the  reader  will 
add  (if  he  can)  a  remembrance  of  the  Somersetshire  and 
Devonshire  roads,  over  which  this  top-heavy  load  had  to 
be  carried  at  about  twelve  miles  an  hour,  it  will  not  seem 
strange  to  him  that  accidents  should  have  occurred.  Not 
that  the  roads  were  bad;  they  were,  thanks  to  Macadam, 
good,  hard,  and  smooth,  but  the  hills  are  numerous,  and 
in  many  cases  very  steep. 

But  the  journey,  especially  on  the  box-seat,  was  a  very 
pleasant  thing.  The  whole  of  the  service  was  so  well 
done,  and  in  every  detail  so  admirable.  It  need  hardly  be 
said  that  the  men  selected  for  the  drivers  of  such  a  coach 
were  masters  of  their  profession.    The  work  was  hard,  but 


EARLY   DAYS  IN   LOXDOX.  25 

the  remuneration  was  very  good.  There  were  fewer  pas- 
sengers by  the  mail  to  "  remember  the  coachman,"  but  it 
was  more  uniformly  full,  and  somewhat  more  was  expect- 
ed from  a  traveller  by  the  mail.  It  was  a  beautiful  thing 
to  see  a  splendid  team  going  over  their  short  stage  at 
twelve  miles  an  hour!  Of  course  none  but  good  cattle  in 
first-rate  condition  could  do  the  work.  A  mot  of  old  Mrs. 
Mountain,  for  many  years  the  well-known  proprietress  of 
one  of  the  large  coaching  inns  in  London,  used  to  be 
quoted  as  having  been  addressed  by  her  to  one  of  her 
drivers:  "You  find  whipcord,  John,  and  I'll  find  oats!" 
And,  as  it  used  to  be  said,  the  measure  of  the  corn  sup- 
plied to  a  coach-horse  was  his  stomach. 

It  was  a  pretty  thing  to  see  the  changing  of  the  horses. 
There  stood  the  fresh  team,  two  on  the  off  side,  two  on 
the  near  side,  and  the  coach  was  drawn  up  with  the  ut- 
most exactitude  between  them.  Four  hostlers  jump  to 
the  splinter-bars  and  loose  the  traces;  the  reins  have  al- 
ready been  thrown  down.  The  driver  retains  his  seat, 
and  within  the  minute  (more  than  once  within  fifty  sec- 
onds by  the  watch  in  my  hand)  the  coach  is  again  on  its 
onward  journey. 

Then  how  welcome  was  breakfast  at  an  excellent  old- 
world  country  inn  —  twenty  minutes  allowed.  The  hot 
tea,  after  your  night's  drive,  the  fresh  cream,  butter,  ogg^, 
liot  toast,  and  cold  beef,  and  then,  with  cigar  alight,  back 
to  the  box  and  off  again! 

I  once  witnessed  on  that  road — not  quite  that  road,  for 
the  Quicksilver  took  a  somewhat  different  line — the  stage 
of  four  miles  between  Ilchester  and  Ilminster  done  in 
twenty  minutes,  and  a  trace  broken  and  mended  on  tlu' 
road!  The  mending  was  effected  by  the  guard  almost 
l)cf()re  the  coacli  stf)p])ed.  It  is  a  level  bit  of  nxnl,  four 
miles  only  for  the  entire  stage,  and  was  performed  at  a 
full  gallop.  That  was  done  by  a  coach  called  the  Tele- 
graj)]!,  which  was  started  some  years  after  the  (Quicksilver, 
to  do  tlie  distance  from  Exeter  to  London  in  the  day. 
We  left  Exeter  at  5  a.m.  and  reached  London  between 
nine  an<l  ten,  with  time  for  both  breakfast  and  dinner  on 
the  road.     I  think  the  performance  of  the  Exeter  Tele- 


26  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

graph  was  about  the  nc  plus  vltra  of  coach  travelling. 
One  man  drove  fifty  miles,  and  then,  meeting  the  other 
coach  on  the  road,  changed  from  one  box  to  the  other  and 
then  drove  back  again.  It  was  tremendously  hard  work! 
I  once  remarked  to  him  as  I  sat  beside  him  that  there  was 
not  much  work  for  his  whip-arm.  "  Not  much,  sir,"  he 
replied;  "but  just  put  your  hand  on  my  left  arm!"  I  did, 
and  felt  the  muscle  swollen  to  its  utmost,  and  hard  as  iron. 
"  Many  people  think,"  he  said,  "  that  it  is  easier  work  to 
drive  such  a  coach  and  such  a  team  as  this  than  to  have 
to  flog  a  dull  team  up  to  eight  miles  an  hour.  Nobody 
would  think  so  that  had  ever  tried  both!" 

I  once  persuaded  my  mother,  who  was  returning  with 
me  from  Exeter  to  London,  to  make  the  journey  on  the 
box  of  the  Telegraph  Avhile  I  sat  behind  her.  She  had 
been  a  good  deal  afraid  of  the  experiment,  but  admitted 
that  she  had  never  enjoyed  a  journey  more. 

But,  having  been  led  by  my  coaching  reminiscences  to 
speak  of  my  visits  to  Exeter  and  to  Fanny  Bent,  I  must 
not  turn  that  page  of  the  past  without  dedicating  a  few 
lines  to  one  to  Avhom  I  had  great  cause  to  be  gratefully 
attached,  and  whose  character,  both  in  its  high  worth  and 
its  originality  and  singularity,  was  a  product  of  that  day 
hardly  likely  to  be  rei)roduced  in  this. 

Very  plain  in  feature,  and  dressed  with  Quaker-like 
simplicity  and  utter  disregard  for  appearance,  her  figure 
was  as  well  known  in  Exeter  as  the  cathedral  towers.  She 
held  a  position  and  enjoyed  an  amount  of  respect  which 
was  really  singular  in  the  case  of  a  very  homely-featured 
old  maid  of  very  small  fortune.  She  aifected,  like  some 
other  persons  I  have  known  both  in  the  far  west  and  the 
far  north  of  England,  to  speak  the  dialect  of  her  country. 
Though  without  any  pretension  to  literary  tastes  or  pur- 
suits, she  was  a  fairly  well-read  woman,  and  was  perfectly 
able  to  speak  better  English  than  many  a  Londoner.  But 
she  chose,  tchen  in  DevonsJiire,  to  speak  as  Devonshire 
folks  spoke.  She  was  a  thoroughgoing  Church  woman 
and  Conservative,  though  too  universally  popular  with  all 
classes  to  confine  her  sympathies  within  any  party  bounds. 
She  liad  a  strong  native  sense  of  lumior,  and,  despite  the 


EARLY   DAYS  IN  LONDON.  27 

traditions  and  principles  wliicli  taught  her  to  consider 
"Peter  Pindar"  as  a  reprobate,  she  could  not  resist  the 
enjoyment  of  his  description  of  the  king's  visit  to  Exeter. 
It  was  a  treat  to  hear  her  read  the  verses  in  her  own  Dev- 
on vernacular.  And  I  shall  never  forget  her  whispering 
to  me  as  we  walked  up  the  nave  of  the  cathedral,  "  Nate, 
nate !  Clane,  clane  !  Do  ye  mop  it,  moj)  it,  Mr.  Dane?'''' 
And  how  Dane  Duller  replied,  "In  all  our  Ex'ter  shops 
we  do  not  meet  Avith  such  long  mops.  Our  mops  don't 
reach  so  high!"  I  quote  possibly  incorrectly  from  the 
recollections  of  some  sixty  years  ago;  and  I  have  never 
studied  Mr.  "NVoolcott's  Avorks  since.  But  the  very  tones 
of  the  dear  old  lady's  voice,  as  she  Avhispcred  the  words, 
bursting  the  while  with  suppressed  laughter,  remain  in 
my  ears. 

A  pious  Church  woman  of  these  improved  days  would 
not,  I  take  it,  select  such  a  place  and  such  a  time  for  such 
whisperings.  But  I  am  sure  it  Avould  be  difficult  to  find 
a  better  or  more  sincere  Christian  than  dear  old  Fanny 
Bent.  And  the  anecdote  may  be  accepted  as  one  more 
illustration  of  change  in  manners,  feeling,  and  decencies. 

Then  there  were  strawberry-and-cream  parties  at  a  place 
called,  if  I  rememl)er  right,  Ilooporn  Bowers,  always  Avith 
a  bevy  of  i)retty  girls,  for  attracting  Avhom  my  plain  old 
spinster  cousin  seemed  to  possess  a  special  secret;  and  ex- 
cursions to  Marypole  Head,  and  drives  over  Ilaldon  Down. 
When  I  revisited  Exeter  some  months  ago  Iloopern  Boav- 
ers  seemed  to  have  passed  from  the  memory  of  man!  Ami 
whether  any  one  of  the  laughing  girls  I  had  known  there 
Avas  still  extant  as  a  gray-headed  crone  I  could  not  learn! 
Marypole  Head,  too,  has  been  nearly  sAvalloAved  \\\>  by  the 
advancing  tide  of  "villas"  surging  up  the  hill,  though  the 
look-down  on  ihe  other  side  over  Upton  Pynes  and  ihe 
valley  of  the  Exe  is  lovely  as  ever.  And  Ilaldon  DoAvn, 
at  all  events,  is  as  breezy  as  of  yore! 

Dr.  Bowring — subsequently  Sir  John — Avas  at  that  time 
resident  in  Exeter  witli  his  two  daughters.  The  doctor 
Avas  hardly  likely  to  be  intimate  Avith  J'\inny  Bent's  Con- 
servative and  mainly  clerical  friends,  but,  knowing  every- 
body, she  knew  him  too,  and  rather  s^iecially  liked  his 


28  WHAT  1  REMEMBER. 

girls,  who  used  to  be  of  our  Iloopern  Bower  parties.  Lucy 
Bowring  -was  some  years  my  senior,  but  I  remember  think- 
ing her  very  charming;  she  was  a  tall,  handsome,  dark- 
eyed  girl,  decidedly  clever,  and  a  little  more  inclined  to 
be  emancipee  in  matters  ecclesiastical  than  were  the  others 
of  the  little  world  around  her.  Then  there  was  gentle 
Rachel  Hutchinson!  How  strangely  names  that  have  not 
been  in  my  mind  for  half  a  century  or  more  come  back  to 
me!  Rachel  was  the  daughter  of  a  retired  physician,  a 
widower,  whom  I  recognized  as  a  man  of  elegant  and  re- 
lined  culture,  somewhat  superior  to  the  majority  of  the 
local  clergy  among  whom  he  lived.  I  can  see  him  now,  a 
slender,  somewhat  daintily  dressed  figure,  punctiliously 
courteous,  with  a  pleasant,  old  -  world  flavor  in  his  man- 
ner; with  carefully  arranged  gray  hair,  double  gold  eye- 
glass, a  blue  swallow-tailed  coat,  nankeen  trousers,  and 
polished  shoes.  But  he  did  not  come  to  Hoopern  Bowers, 
His  daughter  Rachel  did;  and  v/as  curiously  contrasted 
with  Lucy  Bowring  in  every  respect.  She  was  a  small, 
sylph-like  little  figure,  with  blue  eyes,  blond  hair,  very 
]»retty  and  very  like  an  angel.  She  was  also  very,  very 
religious  after  the  evangelical  fashion  of  that  day,  and 
gave  me  a  volume  of  Low-Church  literature,  which  I  pre- 
served many  years  Avith  much  sentiment,  but,  I  fear,  no 
further  profit.  I  think  that  the  talks  which  Lucy  and 
Rachel  and  I  had  together  over  our  strawberries  and 
cream  must  have  had  some  flavor  of  originality  about 
them,  I  do  not  imagine  that  Lucy  thought  or  cared  much 
about  my  soul,  but  I  fancy  that  Rachel  felt  herself  to  be 
contending  for  it. 

And  now,  all  gone!  Probably  not  one  of  all  those  who 
made  those  little  festivities  so  pleasant  to  me  remains  on 
the  face  of  the  earth!  At  all  events  every  one  of  them 
has  many,  many  years  ago  passed  out  of  the  circle  of  light 
projected  by  my  magic  lantern! 

And  how  many  others  have  passed  like  phantasmagoric 
shadows  across  that  little  circle  of  liffht!  It  is  one  of  the 
results  of  such  a  rolling-stone  life  as  mine  has  been  that 
the  number  of  persons  I  have  known,  and  even  made 
friends  of  for  the  time,  has  been  imiuense;  but  they  all 


EARLY   DATS   IX   LONDON.  29 

pass  like  a  plianlom  pi-ocession!  IIow  many!  IIow  many! 
They  have  trooped  on  into  the  outer  darkness  and  been 
lost! 

I  suppose  that  during  the  half -century,  or  nearly  that 
time — from  1840  to  1886 — that  I  knew  little  or  nothinar  of 
England,  the  change  that  has  come  upon  all  English  life 
has  been  nearly  as  great  in  one  part  of  the  country  as  an- 
other. But  on  visiting  Exeter  a  few  months  ajjo  I  was 
much  struck  at  its  altered  aspect,  because  I  had  known  it 
well  in  my  youth.  It  was  not  so  much  that  the  new 
rows  of  houses  and  detached  villas  seemed  to  have  nearly 
doubled  the  extent  of  the  city,  and  obliterated  many  of 
the  old  features  of  it,  as  that  the  character  of  the  po})ula- 
tion  seemed  changed.  It  was  less  provincial — a  term  which 
cockneys  naturally  use  in  a  disparaging  sense,  but  which 
in  truth  implies  quite  as  much  that  is  pleasant  as  the  re- 
verse. It  seemed  to  have  been  infected  by  much  of  the 
ways  and  spirit  of  London,  Avithout,  of  course,  having  any- 
thing of  the  special  advantages  of  London  to  offer.  Peo- 
ple no  longer  walked  down  the  High  Street  along  a  pave- 
ment abundantly  ample  for  the  traffic,  nodding  right  and 
left  to  accpiaintances.  Everybody  knew  everybody  no 
longer.  The  leisurely  gossiping  ways  of  the  shopkeepers 
had  been  exchanged  for  the  short  and  sharp  promptitude 
of  London  liabits.  I  recognized,  indeed,  the  well-remera- 
bcrcd  tone  of  the  cathedral  bells.  But  the  cathedral  and 
its  associations  and  influences  did  not  seem  to  hold  the 
same  place  in  the  city  life  as  it  did  in  the  olden  time  of 
my  young  days.  There  was  an  impalpable  and  very  in- 
describable, l)Ut  yet  unmistakably  sensible  something  which 
seemed  to  shut  off  the  ecclesiastical  life  on  one  side  of  the 
close  precincts  from  the  town  life  on  the  other,  in  a  man- 
ner which  was  new  to  me.  I  have  little  doubt  that  if  I 
had  casually  asked  in  any  large — say — grocer's  shop  in 
tlie  High  Street,  who  was  the  canon  in  residence,  I  should 
liave  received  a  reply  indicating  that  the  jierson  incpiired 
of  liad  not  an  idea  of  what  I  was  talking  about;  and  am 
very  sun-  that  lialf  a  century  ago  the  ri-jily  to  the  same 
question  would  have  been  everywhere  a  prompt  one. 

The  luvely  garden  close  under  the  city  wall  on  the 


30  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

nortbern  side — perhaps  the  prettiest  city  garden  in  Eng- 
\aud — with  its  remarkably  beautiful  view  of  the  cathedral 
(which  used  to  belong  to  old  Edmund  Granger,  an  especial 
crony  of  Fanny  Bent's),  exists  still,  somewhat  more  closely 
shut  in  by  buildings.  We  were  indeed  permitted  to  walk 
there  the  other  day  by  the  kindness  of  the  present  j^ro- 
prietor,  merely  as  members  of  "  the  public,"  which  would 
not  have  been  dreamed  of  in  those  old  days  when  "the 
public"  was  less  thought  of  than  at  present.  But  I  could 
not  help  thinking  that  "  the  public,"  and  I,  as  a  portion 
and  repx'esentative  of  it,  must  be  a  terrible  nuisance  to  the 
owner  of  that  beautiful  and  tranquil  spot,  so  great  as  seri- 
ously to  diminish  the  value  of  it. 

Another  small  difference  occurs  to  me  as  illustrative  of 
the  chantres  that  time  and  the  rail  have  brouejht  about.  I 
heard  very  little  of  the  once  familiar  Devonshire  dialect. 
Something  of  intonation  there  may  yet  linger,  but  of  the 
old  idioms  and  phraseology  little  or  nothing. 

But  I  have  been  beguiled  into  all  these  reminiscences 
of  the  fair  capital  of  the  west  and  my  early  days  there 
by  the  Quicksilver  Mail,  itself  a  most  compendious  and  al- 
most complete  illustration  of  the  nature  of  the  differences 
between  its  own  day  and  that  of  its  successor,  the  rail ! 

To  the  rail  is  due  principally  much  of  the  changed  aj)- 
pearance  of  London.  Certainly  the  domestic  architecture 
of  the  Geoi'gian  period  has  little  enough  of  beauty  to  rec- 
ommend it.  It  is  insignificant,  mean,  and  prosaic  to  an  ex- 
traordinary degree,  as  we  all  know.  But  it  is  not  marked 
by  the  audacious,  ostentatious,  nightmare-hideousness  of 
the  railway  arches  and  viaducts  and  stations  of  modern 
London.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  the  greatest  change 
in  the  daily  life  and  habits  of  a  Londoner  has  been  pro- 
duced by  gas,  by  Peel's  police,  electric  telegraphy,  mod- 
ern postal  arrangements,  or  the  underground  railway.  Can 
the  present  generation  ])icture  to  itself  what  London  was 
and  looked  like  when  lighted  only  by  the  few  twinkling 
oil  lamps  which  seemed  to  serve  no  other  purpose  save  to 
make  darkness  visible?  Can  it  conceive  a  London  police- 
less  by  day,  and  protected  at  night  only  by  a  few  heavily 
great-coated  watchmen,  very   generally   asleep    in    their 


EARLY   DAYS   L\  LOXDOX.  31 

"boxes,"  and  equipped  with  a  huge  rattle  in  one  hand 
and  a  large  stable  lantern  in  the  other  ?  The  two-penny 
post  was  considered  an  immense  boon  to  Londoners  and 
their  needs  of  quick  communication  between  the  different 
districts  of  their  even  then  overgrown  town.  But  what 
would  they  have  thought  of  an  almost  hourly  postal  de- 
livery, and  of  the  insufficient  quickness  of  that  being  sup- 
plemented by  telegraphic  messages,  to  be  outstrijjped  in 
their  turn  by  telephony  ?  And  what  would  the  modern 
Londoner  think  of  doing  without  all  these  things? 

But  perhaps  the  underground  railways  have  most  of 
all  revolutionized  the  London  habits  of  the  present  day. 
Why,  even  to  me,  who  knew  cabless  London,  they  seem 
to  have  become  indispensable.  I  loathe  them  !  The  hurry- 
scurry  !  The  necessity  of  "  looking  sharp  !"  The  diffi- 
culty of  ascertaining  which  carriage  you  are  to  take,  and 
of  knowing  when  you  have  arrived  at  your  journey's  end  ! 
The  horrible  atmos])here  !  All  strong  against  the  deed ! 
And  yet  the  necessities  of  time  and  place  in  the  huge,  over- 
grown monster  of  a  town  seem  to  compel  rae  to  pass  a 
large  portion  of  my  hours  among  the  sewers,  when  I  find 
myself  a  dazed  and  puzzled  stranger  in  the  town  I  once 
knew  so  well. 

Another  very  striking  change  in  the  appearance  of  Lon- 
don in  the  jubilee  year  of  Queen  Victoria  as  contrasted 
with  the  London  of  George  the  Third  and  the  Regency,  is 
caused  by  tlie  j)repostcrous  excess  of  the  system  of  adver- 
tising. Of  course  the  practice  is  deeply  rooted  in  causes 
whicli  profoundly  affect  all  the  developments  of  social  life 
and  modes  of  thouglit,  as  Carlyle  well  understood.  But  I 
am  nowsi)eaking  merely  of  the  exterior  and  surface  effect 
of  the  ubi(|nit()us  sheets  of  paper  of  all  colors  of  tlie  rain- 
bow, witli  their  monstrous  pictorial  illustrations.  I  know 
tliat  to  say  that  it  vulgarizes  the  town  to  a  quite  infinite 
degree  may  bo  thought  to  be  mere  meaningless  cant,  or 
illiberal  affectation,  itself  truly  vulgar.  Yet  surely  the 
accusation  must  be  all<t\ve(l  (o  be  a  just  ouv.  If  brazen- 
fac'd  self-assertion,  frantically  eager  (•()ni]»etition  in  the 
struggle  for  profit,  and  the  ])ersuasion  that  this  can  best  be 
attained  bv  the  sort  of  assertions  and   inducements  with 


32  WDAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Avhieh  the  walls  are  covered,  be  not  vulgar,  what  is  ?  And 
what  of  the  public  which  is  attracted  by  the  devices  which 
the  experience  of  those  Avho  cater  for  it  teach  them  to 
employ  ?  I  miss  in  the  London  of  the  present  day  a  kind 
of  shop  which  was  not  uncommon  in  the  days  when  I  first 
knew  the  town — shops  at  which  one  description  of  article 
only  was  sold,  and  where  that  one  was  to  be  had  notori- 
ously of  the  best  possible  quality;  shops  that  appeared  to 
despise  all  the  finery  of  glass  and  brass  and  mahogany; 
where  prices  were  not  cut  down  to  the  lowest  possible 
figure  by  the  competitive  necessity  of  underselling,  but 
where  every  article  could  be  trusted  to  be  what  it  pre- 
tended to  be.  Shops  of  this  kind  never  advertised  at  all, 
but  were  content  to  trust  for  business  to  the  reputation 
they  had  made  for  themselves.  I  am  told  that  everything 
is  «,  great  deal  cheaper  than  it  used  to  be,  and  truly  find 
that  such  is  the  case.  But  I  am  not  at  all  persuaded  that 
I  get  better  value  for  my  money.  To  tell  the  truth,  it 
seems  to  my  old-fashioned  notions  and  habits  that  in  com- 
mercial matters  we  have  arrived  at  the  cheap  and  nasty 
stage  of  development.  I  am  a  poor  man — far  too  poor 
a  man  to  drink  Lafitte  Bordeaux.  But  that  need  not 
compel  me  to  drink  cheap  claret  or  any  abomination  of 
the  kind  !  Good  ale  is  far  better  than  bad  wine,  and 
good  water  better  than  bad  beer !  At  least  that  is  what 
the  experience  of  well-nigh  fourscore  years  has  taught 
me ! 

One  of  my  earliest  strolls  in  London  revisited  lately 
was  to  the  old  haunts  I  had  once  known  so  Avell  at  Lin- 
coln's Inn.  I  had  walked  along  the  new  embankment  lost 
in  wonder  and  admiration.  The  most  incorrigible  lauda- 
tor temporis  aeti  cannot  but  admit  that  nineteenth-century 
London  has  there  done  something  and  })Ossesses  something 
which  any  city  on  this  earth  may  well  be  proud  of !  And 
so  I  came  to  the  Temple,  and,  rambling  through  its  reno- 
vated gardens  and  courts,  thought  how  infinitely  more  in- 
viting they  looked  than  anything  in  Belgrave  Square  or 
iMayfair  !  Ttmpla  quani  dilecta!  Why,  if  only  a  wall 
could  be  built  around  the  precincts  high  enough  and  strong 
enough  to  shut  out  London  sounds  and  London  smells  and 


EARLY  DAYS  IN   LONDON.  33 

London  atmosphere,  one  might  be  almost  as  well  there  as 
in  Magdalen  at  Oxford  ! 

And  Alsatia  too,  its  next-door  neighbor  to  the  eastward, 
all  ravaged  and  routed  out,  its  mysterious  courts  and  light- 
abhorring  alleys  exposed  to  the  flouting  glare  of  a  sun- 
shine baking  a  barren  extent,  devoted  apparently  to  dead 
cats  and  potslierds  !  That  Whitefriars  district  used  to  be 
a  favorite  exploring-grouud  of  mine  after  the  publication 
of  "  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel."  How  the  copper  caj^tains,  if 
condemned  to  walk  their  former  haunts,  would  slink  away 
in  search  of  the  cover  of  darksome  nooks  no  longer  to  be 
found  !  AVhat  would  Miss  Trapbois's  ghost,  wandering  in 
the  unsheltered  publicity  of  the  new  embankment,  think 
of  the  cataclysm  which  has  overwhelmed  the  world  she 
knew ! 

Then,  marvelling  at  the  ubiqiiitous  railway  bridges  and 
arches,  which  seem  to  return  again  and  again  like  the  re- 
curring horrors  of  a  nightmare  dream,  I  passed  westward, 
where  the  Fleet  Prison  is  not,  and  where  even  Temple  Bar 
is  no  more,  till  I  came  to  Chancery  Lane,  which  seemed  to 
retain  much  of  its  old  dinginess,  and  passed  thence  under 
tlie  unchanged  old  gateway  into  Lincoln's  Inn  Old  Square, 
where  my  father's  chambers  were,  and  where  I  used  to  go 
to  him  with  my  nonsense  verses. 

Old  Square  looks  much  as  it  used  to  look,  I  think. 
And  the  recollection  darted  across  my  mind — who  shall 
say  why? — of  a  queer-looking  shambling  figure,  whom  my 
father  pointed  out  to  me  one  day  from  the  window  of  his 
chambers.  "  That,"  said  he,  "  is  Jockey  Bell,  perhaps  the 
first  conveyancer  in  England.  lie  probably  knows  more 
of  the  law  of  real  i)ropcrty  than  any  man  breathing."  lie 
was  a  rather  short,  S(juab-looking,  and  very  sha'Dby  figure, 
who  walked,  I  think,  a  little  lame.  lie  came,  I  was  told, 
from  the  north  country,  and  spoke  with  a  strong  Northum- 
brian accent,  "  It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  have  to  decipher 
an  oj)inion  of  his,"  said  my  father;  "he  is  said  to  have 
throe  liandwritings — one  when  he  is  sober,  which  ho  can 
read  himself;  ono  wlien  he  is  drunk,  w  hicli  his  elork  can 
read;  and  one  next  morning  after  being  drunk,  which  no 
human  being  can  read  !" 


34  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

And  I  looked  for  the  little  shabby,  stuffy  court  in 
which  I  had  so  often  -svatched  Eldon's  lowering  brow,  as 
he  doubted  over  some  knotty  point.  My  father  had  the 
highest  opinion  of  his  intellectual  power  and  legal  knowl- 
edge. But  he  did  not  like  him.  He  used  to  say  that  his 
mind  was  an  instrument  of  admirable  precision,  but  his 
soul  the  soul  of  a  pedler.  I  take  it  Eldon's  quintessential 
Toryism  was  obnoxious  to  my  father's  Liberalism.  He 
used  to  repeat  the  following  "report"  of  a  casein  the 
Court  of  Chancery: 

"Mr.  LeecU*  made  a  speech; 

'Twas  learned,  terse,  and  strong. 
Mr.  Hart,  on  the  other  part, 

Was  neat  and  glib,  but  wrong. 
Mr.  Parker  made  it  darker ; 

'Twas  dark  enough  without ! 
Mr.  Cook  cited  a  book  ; 

And  the  Chancellor  said,  I  doubt," 

Una  omnes 2^rcmit  nox! 

Of  course  among  the  other  changes  of  sixty  years  lan- 
guage had  changed.  There  had  been  a  change,  especially 
in  pronunciation,  a  little  before  my  time.  Only  very  old 
and  old-fashioned  people  continued  in  my  earliest  years  to 
say  Jioom  for  Rome;  gould  for  gold;  obleege  for  oblige; 
Jeames  for  James  (one  of  our  chaplains  at  Winchester,  I 
remember,  always  used  to  speak  of  St.  Jeames)',  a  beef- 
steek  for  a  beef-steak;  or  to  pronounce  the  "a"  in  danger, 
stranger,  and  the  like,  as  it  is  in  "  man."  But  it  is  a  sin- 
gular fact,  that  despite  the  spread,  and  supposed  improve- 
ment of  education,  the  literary — or  perhaps  it  would  be 
better  to  say  the  printed — language  of  the  earlier  decades 
of  the  nineteenth  century  was  much  more  correct  than 
that  of  the  latter  part  of  it.  I  constantly  find  passages  in 
books  and  newspapers  written  with  the  sublimest  indif- 
ference to  all  grammatical  rules,  and  all  2:)roprieties  of 
construction,  A  popular  writer  of  fiction  says  that  her 
hero  "rose  his  head  !"  And  another  tells  her  readers  that 
something  happened  when  "  the  brunt  of  the  edge  had 

*  Subsequently  Master  of  the  Rolls. 


EARLY   DAYS   IX   LONDON.  35 

worn  off  I"  There  are  certain  words,  such  as  "idiosyn- 
crasy," "type,"  "momentary,"  and  many  others  which  I 
cannot  while  writing  recollect,  which  are  constantly  used, 
not  by  one  writer  only,  but  by  many,  to  express  meanings 
wholly  different  from  those  which  they  really  bear.  There 
is  another  word  which  is  worth  mentioning,  because  the 
misuse  of  it  is  rapidly  becoming  endemic.  I  mean  the 
verb  "trouble;"  which  it  seems  to  me  all  the  world  before 
the  birth  of  the  present  generation  very  well  knew  to  be 
an  active,  not  a  neuter  verb.  Now  scarcely  a  day  passes 
without  my  meeting  with  such  phrases  as  "he  did  not 
trouble,"  meaning,  trouble  himself;  "I  hope  you  won't 
trouble,"  instead  of  trouble  yourself.  To  old-fashioned 
cars  it  seems  a  detestable  vulgarism.  But  as  far  as  I  can 
gather  from^  observing  books  that  have  a  greater,  and 
books  that  have  a  lesser,  degree  of  success,  and  from  the 
remarks  of  the  critical  journals,  a  book  is  in  these  latter 
days  deemed  none  the  worse,  nor  is  at  all  less  likely  to 
find  favor  with  the  public,  because  it  is  full  of  grammati- 
cal or  linguistic  solecisms.  Xow  certainly  this  is  an  in- 
stance and  indication  of  changed  ideas;  for  it  assuredly 
was  not  the  case  when  George  the  Third  was  king. 

Another  difference  between  that  day  and  this  of  very 
considerable  social  significance  may  be  observed  in  the 
character  and  development  of  the  slang  in  use.  There 
was  at  the  former  period  very  little  slang  of  the  kind  that 
may  be  considered  universal.  Different  classes  had  differ- 
ent i)hrases  and  locutions  that  were  peculiar  to  them,  and 
served  more  or  less  as  a  bond  of  union  and  exclusiveness 
as  reganled  outsiders.  The  criminal  classes  had  their 
slang.  The  universities  had  theirs.  There  was  coster- 
mongers'  slang.  And  there  was  a  slang  peculiar  to  the 
inner  circles  of  the  fashionable  world,  together  Avith  many 
other  special  dialects  that  might  be  named.  IJut  the  spe- 
cialties of  these  various  idioms  were  not  interchangeable, 
nor  for  the  most  part  intelligible  outside  the  worlil  to 
which  they  belonged.  Nor — and  this  difference  is  a  very 
notable  one — did  slang  jihrascs  grow  into  acce]»tance  with 
tlic  rapidity  or  universality  which  now  characterizes  their 
advent — a  notable  difference,  because  it,  of  course,  arises 


36  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

from  the  increased  rapidity  of  communication,  and  from 
the  much  greater  degree  in  which  all  classes  and  all  pro- 
vincial and  to'.vn  populations  are  mixed  together  and 
rubbed  against  each  other.  It  used  to  be  said,  and  is  still 
said  by  some  old-world  folks,  that  the  use  of  slang  is  vul- 
gar. And  the  younger  generation,  which  uses  it  univer- 
sally, ridicules  much  the  old  fogey  narrowness  which  so 
considers  it.  But  the  truth  is,  that  there  was  in  the 
older  time  nothing  really  vulgar  in  the  use  of  the  slang 
which  then  prevailed.  Why  should  not  every  class  and 
every  profession  have  its  own  shibboleths  and  its  own 
phrases?  And  is  there  not  real  vulgarity  in  the  mind 
which  considers  a  man  vulgar  for  using  the  language  of 
the  class  to  which  he  really  belongs  ?  But  the  modern 
use  of  slang  is  truly  vulgar  for  a  very  different  reason.  It 
is  vulirar  because  it  arises  from  one  of  the  most  intrinsi- 
cally  vulgar  of  all  the  vulgar  tendencies  of  a  vulgar  mind 
— imitation.  There  are  slang  phrases  which,  because  they 
vividly  or  graphically  express  a  conception,  or  clothe  it 
with  humor,  are  admirable.  But  they  are  admirable  only 
in  the  mouths  of  their  inventors. 

Of  course  it  is  an  abuse  of  language  to  say  that  the 
beauty  of  a  pretty  girl  strikes  yon  with  awe.  But  he  who 
Jirst  said  of  some  girl  that  she  was  "  awfully"  pretty  was 
abundantly  justified  by  the  half -humorous,  half -serious 
consideration  of  all  the  effects  such  loveliness  may  pro- 
duce. But  then,  because  this  was  felt  to  be  the  case,  and 
the  77iot  was  accepted,  all  the  tens  of  thousands  of  idiotic 
cretins  who  have  been  rubbed  down  into  exact  similarity 
to  each  other  by  excessive  locomotion  and  the  "spread" 
of  education — spread  indeed  after  the  fashion  in  which  a 
gold-beater  spreads  his  metal — imitate  each  other  in  the 
senseless  use  of  it.  They  are  just  like  the  man  in  the 
"Joe  Miller"  story,  who,  because  a  laugh  followed  when 
a  host,  whose  servant  let  fall  a  dish  v»ith  a  boiled  tongue 
on  it,  said  it  was  only  a  lapsus  linguce,  ordered  his  own 
servant  to  throw  down  a  leg  of  mutton,  and  then  made 
the  same  remark  ! 

There  was  an  old  gentleman  who  had  a  very  tolerable 
notion  of  what  is  vulgar  and  what  is  not,  and  who  char- 


EARLY   DAYS  IN   LONDON.  37 

acterizecl  "  imitators  "  as  a  "  servile  herd."  And  surely, 
if,  as  wc  are  often  told,  this  is  a  vulgar  age,  the  fact  is 
due  to  the  prevalence  of  this  ver}^  tap-root  of  vulgarity, 
imitation.  Of  course  I  am  not  speaking  of  imitation  in 
any  of  the  various  cases  in  vi^hich  there  is  an  end  in  view 
outside  the  fact  of  the  imitation.  The  child  in  order  to 
speak  must  imitate  those  whom  it  hears  speaking.  If  you 
would  make  a  pudding,  you  must  imitate  the  cook  ;  if  a 
coat,  the  tailor.  But  the  imitation  which  is  essentially 
vulgar,  the  very  tap-root,  as  I  have  said,  of  vulgarity,  is 
imitation  for  imitation's  sake.  And  that  is  why  I  think 
modern  slang  is  essentially  vulgar.  If  it  is  your  real 
opinion  —  right  or  wrong  matters  not  —  that  any  slang 
phrase  expresses  any  idea  with  peculiar  accuracy,  vivid- 
ness, or  humor,  use  it  by  all  means;  and  he  is  a  narrow 
blockhead  who  sees  any  vulgarity  in  your  doing  so.  But 
for  Heaven's  take,  my  dear  Dick,  don't  use  it  merely  be- 
cause you  heard  Bob  use  it ! 

Yet  there  is  something  pathetically  humble  too  about 
a  man  so  conscious  of  his  own  worthlcssness  as  to  be  ever 
anxious  to  look  like  somebody  else.  And  surely  a  man 
must  have  a  painful  consciousness  of  his  inability  to  utter 
any  word  of  his  own  with  cither  wit  or  wisdom  or  sense  in 
it  who  habitually  strives  to  borrow  the  wit  of  the  last  re- 
tailer of  the  current  slang  whom  he  has  heard. 

In  some  respects,  however,  this  is,  I  think,  a  less  vulgar 
age  than  that  of  my  youth.  Vulgar  exclusiveness  on  grounds 
essentially  illiberal  was  far  more  common.  It  will,  ])or- 
baps,  seem  hardly  credible  at  the  pre^'ent  day  that  middle- 
class  professional  society,  such  as  that  of  barristers,  phy- 
sicians, rectors,  and  vicars,  should  sixty  years  ago  have 
deemed  attorneys  and  general  medical  ])ractitioners  (or 
a)>othecaries,  as  the  usual  and  somewhat  depreciatory 
term  was)  inadmissible  to  social  equality.  But  such  was 
the  case.  My  reminiscences  of  half  a  century  or  more  ago 
seem  to  indicate  also  that  professional  etiquette  has  been 
relaxed  in  various  other  j);irticidars.  I  hear  of  physicians 
])('ing  in  ])artner.sliip  with  others  of  the  same  profession — 
an  arrangement  which  has  a  commercial  savor  in  it  that 
would  have  been  thought  quite  infra  dig.  in  my  younger 


38  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

(lay.  I  liear  also  of  their  accepting,  if  not  perhaps  exact- 
ing, payments  of  a  smaller  amount  than  the  traditional 
guinea.  This  -was  unheard  of  in  the  old  days.  An  Eng- 
lish physician  is  a  member  of  the  most  generously  liberal 
profession  that  exists  or  ever  existed  on  earth.  And  it 
was  an  every-day  occurrence  for  a  physician  to  think  more 
of  the  purse  of  his  patient  than  of  the  value  of  his  own 
services.  But  he  did  this  either  by  refusing  to  accept  any 
fee  whatever,  or  by  declining  it  on  the  occasion  of  subse- 
quent visits:  never  b}^  diminishing  the  amount  of  it.  In 
some  other  cases  professional  dignity  had  to  be  maintained 
under  circumstances  that  entailed  considerable  sacrifices 
on  those  who  were  called  upon  to  maintain  it.  It  was  not 
etiquette,  for  instance,  for  a  barrister  going  on  circuit  to 
travel  otherwise  than  by  a  private  conveyance.  He  might 
hire  a  post-chaise,  or  he  might  ride  his  own  horse,  or  even 
a  hired  one,  but  he  must  not  travel  by  a  stage-coach  or 
put  up  at  a  hotel.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  this  rule 
originated  in  the  notion  that  a  barrister  travelling  to  an 
assize  town  by  the  public  coach  might  fall  in  with  some 
attorney  bound  on  a  similar  errand,  and  might  so  be  led, 
if  not  into  the  sin,  at  least  into  temptation  to  the  sin,  of 
"buggery."  I  dare  say  many  a  young  barrister  of  the 
present  day  does  not  know  what  buggery  means  or  meant ! 
Among  the  sights  and  sounds  which  were  familiar  to 
the  eye  and  ear  in  the  London  of  my  youth,  and  which 
are  so  no  longer,  may  be  mentioned  the  two-penny  post- 
man. Not  many  probably  of  the  rising  generation  are 
aware  that  in  their  fathers'  days  the  London  postal  ser- 
vice was  dual.  The  "  two-penny  postman,"  who  delivered 
letters  sent  from  one  part  of  London  to  another, was  a  dif- 
ferent person  from  the  "general  postman,"  who  delivered 
those  which  came  from  the  country.  The  latter  wore  a 
scarlet,  the  former  a  blue  livery.  And  the  two  adminis- 
trations were  entirely  distinct.  In  those  days,  when  a 
letter  from  York  to  London  cost  a  shilling,  or  not  much 
less,  the  weight  of  a  single  letter  was  limited  solely  by  the 
condition  that  it  must  be  Avritten  on  one  sheet  or  piece  of 
paper  only.  Two  pieces  of  paper,  however  small,  or  how- 
ever light,  incurred  a  double  postage.     I  have  sent  for  a 


EARLY   DAYS   IX  LONDOX.  39 

single  postage  an  enormous  sheet  of  double  folio  outweigh- 
ing some  ten  sheets  of  ordinary  post  jiaper.  Of  course 
envelopes  were  unknown.  Every  sheet  had  to  be  folded 
so  that  it  could  be  sealed  and  the  address  written  on  the 
back  of  it. 

Another  notable  London  change  which  occurs  to  me  is 
that  which  has  come  to  the  Ilaymarket.  In  my  day  it  was 
really  such.  The  whole  right-hand  side  of  the  street  going 
downwards,  from  the  Piccadilly  end  to  the  Opera  House, 
used  to  be  lined  with  loads  of  hay.  The  carts  were  ai*- 
ranged  in  close  order  side  by  side  Avith  their  back  parts 
towards  the  foot  pavement,  which  was  crowded  by  the 
salesmen  and  their  customers. 

I  raiirlit  sav  a  ffood  deal  too  about  the  chanrjes  iu  the 
theatrical  London  world  and  habits,  but  the  subject  is  a 
large  one,  and  has  been  abundantly  illustrated.  It  is  more- 
over one  which  in  its  details  is  not  of  an  edifying  nature. 
And  it  must  suffice,  therefore,  to  bear  my  testimony  to 
the  greatness  of  the  purifying  change  which  has  been 
brought  about  in  all  the  habits  of  play-goers  and  play- 
houses mainly  and  firstly  by  the  exertions  of  my  mother's 
old  and  valued  friend,  Mr.  Macready. 


CHAPTER   III. 

AT    HARROW. 

I  WAS,  I  think,  al)0ut  eight  years  old  when  my  parents 
removed  from  Keppel  Street  to  llarrow-on-the-Hill.  My 
father's  practice,  I  take  it,  was  becoming  less  and  less  sat- 
isfactory, and  his  health  equally  so.  And  the  move  to 
Harrow  was  intended  as  a  remedy  or  palliation  for  both 
these  evils.  My  father  was  a  very  especially  industrious 
and  laborious  man.  And  I  have  the  authority  of  more 
than  one  very  competent  judge  among  his  professional 
contemporaries  for  believing  that  he  was  as  learned  a 
chancery  lawyer  as  was  to  be  found  among  them.  How, 
then,  was  his  want  of  success  to  be  accounted  for?  One 
of  the  competent  authorities  above  alluded  to  accounted 
for  it  thus:  "Your  father,"  he  said  to  me  many  years  af- 
terwards, when  his  troubles  and  failures  had  at  last  ceased 
to  afflict  him,  "  never  came  into  contact  with  a  blockhead 
without  insisting  on  irrefutably  demonstrating  to  him  that 
he  was  such.  And  the  blockhead  did  not  like  it!  He  was 
a  disputatious  man  ;  and  he  was  almost  invariabl}" — at 
least  on  a  point  of  law — right.  But  the  world  differed 
from  him  in  the  opinion  that  being  so  gave  him  the  right 
of  rolling  his  antagonist  in  tlie  dust  and  executing  an  in- 
tellectual dance  of  triumph  on  his  prostrate  form."  He 
was  very  fond  of  whist,  and  was,  I  believe,  a  good  player. 
But  people  did  not  like  to  play  with  him.  "  JMany  men," 
said  an  old  friend  once,  "  will  scold  their  partners  occa- 
sionally. But  Trollope  invariably  scolds  us  all  round  with 
the  utmost  impartiality;  and  that  every  deal !" 

He  was,  in  a  word,  a  highly  resj^ected,  but  not  a  popu- 
lar or  well-beloved  man.  Worst  of  all,  alas  !  he  was  not 
popular  in  liis  own  home.  No  one  of  all  the  family  circle 
was  hajjpy  in  his  presence.  Assuredly  he  was  as  affec- 
tionate and  anxiously  solicitous  a  father  as  any  children 


AT  HARROW.  41 

ever  had.  I  never  remember  his  caning,  whipping,  beat- 
ing, or  striking  any  one  of  ns.  But  he  nsed,  during  the 
detesteil  Latin  lessons,  to  sit  with  his  arm  over  the  back 
of  the  pupil's  chair,  so  that  his  hand  might  be  ready  to 
inflict  an  instantaneous  pull  of  the  hair  as  the  poena  (by 
no  means^^ecZe  clcmdo)  for  every  blundered  concord  or  false 
quantity  ;  the  result  being  to  the  scholar  a  nervous  state 
of  expectancy,  not  judiciously  calculated  to  increase  intel- 
lectual receptivity.  There  was  also  a  strange  sort  of  as- 
cetism  about  him,  which  seemed  to  make  enjoyment,  or 
any  employment  of  the  hours  save  work,  distasteful  and 
offensive  to  him.  Lessons  for  us  boys  Avere  never  over 
and  done  with.  It  was  sufticient  for  my  father  to  see  any 
one  of  us  "  idling,"  i.  e.,  not  occupied  with  book-work,  to 
set  us  to  work  quite  irrespectively  of  the  previously  as- 
signed task  of  the  day  having  been  accomplished.  And 
this  we  considered  to  be  unjust  and  unfair. 

I  have  said  that  the  move  to  Harrow  was  in  some  de- 
gree caused  by  a  hope  that  the  change  might  be  beneficial 
to  my  father's  health,  lie  had  suffered  very  distressingly 
for  many  years  from  bilious  headache,  which  gradually 
increased  upon  him  during  the  whole  of  his  life.  I  may 
say  parenthetically  that,  from  about  fifteen  to  iovij,  I 
suffered  occasionally,  about  once  a  fortnight  perhaps,  from 
the  same  malady,  though  in  a  much  less  intense  form. 
But  at  about  forty  years  old  I  seemed  to  have  grown  out 
of  it,  and  since  that  time  have  never  been  troubled  by  it. 
But  in  mv  father's  dav  the  common  practice  Avas  to  treat 
such  complaints  with  calomel.  lie  was  constantly  having 
recourse  to  that  drug.  And  I  believe  that  it  had  the  effect 
of  shattering  his  nervous  system  in  a  deplorable  manner. 
lie  became  increasingly  irritable;  never  with  the  effect  of 
causing  him  to  raise  a  hand  against  any  one  of  us,  but  with 
the  effect  of  making  intercourse  with  him  so  sure  to  issue 
in  something  unpleasant  that,  unconsciously,  Ave  sought  to 
avdid  his  presence,  and  to  consider  as  hours  of  enjoyment 
only  those  that  could  be  jtassed  away  from  it. 

My  mollu-r's  disj»()sition,  <in  tl;c  other  hand,  was  of  the 
most  geni:il,  cheerful,  happy,  citjoue  nature  imaginable. 
All  our  happiest  hours  Avcre  spent  Avith  her;  and  to  any 


42  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

one  of  us  a  tete-d-tete  with  her  was  preferable  to  any  other 
disposal  of  a  holiday  hour.  But  even  this,  under  all  the 
circumstances,  did  not  tend  to  the  general  harmony  and  hap- 
piness of  the  family  circle.  For,  of  course,  the  facts  and 
the  results  of  them  must  have  been  visible  to  my  father; 
and  though  wholly  inoperative  to  produce  the  smallest 
change  in  his  ways,  must,  I  cannot  doubt,  have  been  pain- 
ful to  him.  It  was  all  very  sad.  My  father  was,  essen- 
tially, a  good  man.  But  he  was,  I  fear,  a  very  unhappy 
one. 

He  was  extremely  fond  of  reading  aloud  to  the  assem- 
bled family  in  the  evening;  and  there  Avas  not  one  indi- 
vidual of  those  who  heard  him  who  would  not  have  es- 
caped from  doing  so  at  almost  any  cost.  Of  course  it  was 
our  duty  to  conceal  this  extreme  reluctance  to  endure  what 
was  to  him  a  pleasure — a  duty  which  I  much  fear  was  very 
imperfectly  performed.  I  remember — oh,  how  well ! — the 
nightly  readings  during  one  winter  of  "  Sir  Charles  Gran- 
dison,"  and  the  loathing  disgust  for  that  production  which 
they  occasioned. 

But  I  do  not  think  that  I  and  my  brothers  were  bad 
boys.  We  wei'e,  I  take  it,  always  obedient.  And  one  in- 
cident remains  in  my  mind  from  a  day  now  nearly  seventy 
years  ago,  Avhich  seems  to  prove  that  the  practice  of  that 
virtue  was  habitual  to  me.  An  old  friend  of  my  mother's, 
Mrs.  Gibbon,  with  her  daughter  Kate,  mentioned  on  a  for- 
mer page  as  the  companion  of  my  lessons  in  the  alphabet, 
were  staying  with  us  at  Harrow.  Mrs.  Gibbon  and  Kate 
and  my  mother  and  I  were  returning  from  a  long  country 
ramble  across  thp  fields  in  a  ])art  of  the  country  my  mother 
was  not  acquainted  with.  There  was  a  steep,  grassy  de- 
clivity down  which  I  and  the  little  girl,  my  contemporary, 
hand-in-hand,  were  running  headlong  in  front  of  our  re- 
spective parents,  when  my  motlier  suddenly  called  out, 
"Stop,  Tom!"  I  stopped  forthwith,  and  came  to  heel  as 
obediently  as  a  well-trained  pointer.  And  about  five  min- 
utes later  my  mother  and  Mrs.  Gibbon,  following  exactly 
in  the  line  in  which  we  had  been  running,  discovered  a 
long  disused  but  perfectly  open  and  unfenced  well! 

If  I  had  not  obeyed  so  promptly  as  I  did  I  should  not 


AT   IL\RROW.  43 

now  be  writing  reminiscences,  and  poor  "  Katy  'Bon,"  as 
I  used  to  call  her,  would  have  gone  to  her  rest  some  ten 
years  earlier  than  she  found  it.  My  mother  always  said 
that  she  could  in  no  wise  account  for  the  impulse  which 
prompted  her  to  call  me  to  stop! 

The  move  to  Harrow  was  as  infelicitous  a  step  in  the 
economic  point  of  view  as  it  was  inefficacious  as  a  measure 
of  health.  My  father  took  a  farm  of  some  three  or  four 
hundred  acres,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  from  Lord 
Northwick.  It  was  a  wholly  disastrous  speculation.  It 
certainly  was  the  case  that  he  paid  a  rent  for  it  far  in  ex- 
cess of  its  fair  value;  and  he  always  maintained  that  he 
had  been  led  to  undertake  to  do  so  by  inaccurate  and 
false  representations.  I  have  no  knowledge  of  these  rep- 
resentations, but  I  am  absolutely  certain  that  my  father 
was  entirely  convinced  that  they  were  such  as  he  charac- 
terized them.  But  he  was  educated  to  be  a  lawyer,  and 
was  a  good  one.  He  had  never  been  educated  to  be  a 
farmer;  and  was,  I  take  it,  despite  unwearied  activity,  and 
rising  up  early  and  late  taking  rest,  a  bad  one. 

To  make  matters  worse,  moreover,  he  built  on  that  land, 
of  which  he  held  only  a  long  lease,  a  large  and  very  good 
house.  The  position  was  excellently  chosen,  the  house 
was  well  conceived  and  well  built,  ajul  the  extensive  gar- 
dens and  grounds  were  well  designed  and  laid  out;  but 
the  unwisdom  of  doing  all  that  on  land  the  property  of 
another  is  but  too  obvious. 

The  excuse  that  my  father  mitrht  have  alleged  was  that 
he  was  by  no  means  wholly  dependent  either  on  his  pro- 
fession or  on  his  farm,  or  on  the  not  inconsiderable  prop- 
erty which  he  had  inherited  from  his  father  or  enjoyed  in 
right  of  Ills  wife.  He  had  an  old  maternal  uncle,  Adol- 
phus  Mcctkerke,  who  lived  on  his  estate  near  Royston,  in 
Ilertfordshirc,  called  Julians.  Mr.  Meetkerke  —  the  de- 
scendant of  a  Dutchman  who  had  come  to  this  country 
some  time  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  diplomatic  re})re- 
sentative  of  his  country,  and  had  settled  here — lived  at 
Julians  with  an  old  cliildlcss  wife,  the  daughter,  I  be- 
lieve, of  a  (ieneral  Chapman — and  my  father  was  liis  de- 
clared heir.     He  had  another  nephew,  Mr.  John  Young, 


44  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

as  flourishing  and  prosperous  an  attorney  as  my  father 
was  an  unsuccessful  and  unprosperous  barrister.  John 
Young,  too,  was  as  Avorthy  and  as  highly  respected  a  man 
as  any  in  the  profession.  But  my  father,  as  settled  long 
years  before,  was  to  be  the  heir;  and  I  was  in  due  time 
shown  to  the  tenantry  as  their  future  landlord,  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  I  suppose  my  grandfather,  the  Rev. 
Anthony  Trollope,  of  Cottenham  in  Hertfordshire,  mar- 
ried an  elder  sister  of  old  Adolphus  Meetkerke,  while  the 
father  of  John  Young  married  a  younger  one.  And 
so,  come  what  might  of  the  Harrow  farm  and  the  new 
house,  I  was  to  be  the  future  owner  of  Julians,  and  live 
on  my  own  acres. 

Afifain,  Z^is  aliter  vision/ 

I  well  remember  more  than  one  visit  to  Julians  with  my 
parents  about  this  time — visits  singularly  contrasted  with 
those  to  my  Grandfather  Milton,  the  Vicar  of  Heckfield. 
The  house  and  establishment  at  Julians  were  on  a  far  more 
pretentious  scale  than  the  home  of  the  vicar,  and  the  mode 
of  life  in  the  squire's  establishment  larger  and  freer.  But 
I  liked  Heckfield  better  than  Julians;  pailly,  I  think,  even 
at  that  early  age,  because  the  former  is  situated  in  an  ex- 
tremely pretty  country,  whereas  the  neighborhood  of  the 
other  is  by  no  means  such.  But  I  please  myself  with  think- 
ing, and  do  really  believe,  that  the  main  reason  for  the 
preference  was  that  the  old  Bristol  saddler's  son  was  a  far 
more  highly-cultured  man  than  the  Hertfordshire  squire. 

He  was  a  good  man,  too,  was  old  Adolphus  Meetkerke; 
a  good  landlord,  a  kindly-natured  man,  a  good  sportsman, 
an  active  magistrate,  and  a  good  husband  to  his  old  wife. 
But  there  was  a  sort  of  flavor  of  roughness  about  the  old 
squire  and  his  surroundings  which  impressed  itself  on  my 
observation  even  in  those  days,  and  would,  I  take  it,  now- 
adays be  deemed  almost  clownish  rusticity. 

Right  well  do  I  remember  the  look  and  figure  of  my 
Aunt  Meetkerke,  properly  great-aunt-in-law.  She  was  an 
admirable  specimen  of  a  squiress,  as  people  and  things 
were  in  that  day.  I  suppose  that  there  was  not  a  poor 
man  or  woman  in  the  parish  with  whose  affairs  of  all  sorts 
she  was  not  intimately  acquainted,  and  to  wliom  she  did 


AT   HARROW.  45 

not  play  the  part  of  an  ever-active  providence.  She  always 
came  down  to  breakfast  clad  in  a  green  riding-habit,  and 
passed  most  of  her  life  on  horseback.  After  dinner,  in  the 
long,  low  drawing-room,  with  its  faded  stone-colored  cur- 
tains and  bookless  desert  spaces,  she  always  slept  as  peace- 
fully as  she  does  now  in  Julians  churchyard.  She  never 
meddled  at  all  Avith  the  housekeeping  of  her  establishment. 
That  was  in  tlie  hands  of  "Mrs.  Anne,"  an  old  maiden  sis- 
ter of  Mr.  Meetkerke.  She  was  a  prim-looking,  rosy-ap- 
ple-faced, most  good-natured  little  woman.  She  always 
carried  a  little  basket  in  her  hand,  in  which  were  the  keys 
and  a  never-changed  volume  of  Miss  Austen's  "Pride  and 
Prejudice,"  which  she  always  recommenced  as  soon  as  she 
had  worked  her  way  to  the  end  of  it.  Though  a  very  pre- 
cise sort  of  person,  she  would  frequently  come  down  to 
breakfast  a  few  minutes  late,  to  find  her  brother  standing 
on  the  hearth-rug  with  his  prayer-book  open  in  his  hand, 
waiting  for  her  arrival  to  begin  prayers  to  the  asseml)led 
houseliold.  lie  had  a  wonderfully  strong,  rasping  voice, 
the  tones  of  which  were  rarely  modulated  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. I  can  hear  now  his  reverberating  "  Five  min- 
utes too  late  again,  Mrs.  Anne;  '  Dearly  beloved  brethren,'" 
— etc.,  the  change  of  person  addressed  and  of  subject  hav- 
ing been  marked  by  no  pause  or  break  whatever  save  the 
sudden  kneeling  at  the  head  of  the  breakfast-table;  while 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  short,  but  never-missed  prayers, 
tlie  transition  from  "Amen"  to  "  "William,  bring  round 
the  brown  mare  after  breakfast"  was  equally  unmarked 
by  pause  or  change  of  voice  or  manner. 

The  parish  in  whicli  Julians  is  situated  is  a  small  vicar- 
age, the  incumbent  of  which  was  at  that  time  a  l)achelor, 
]\Ir.  Skinner.  Tlie  church  was  a  very  small  one,  and  my 
great-uncle  an<l  his  family  tlu>  only  jiersons  in  the  coTigre- 
gation  above  the  rank  of  the  two  or  three  small  farmers 
and  tlie  agricultural  laborers  who  mainly  composed  it. 
Wlutlur  tliere  was  any  clerk  or  not  I  do  not  remember. 
I>ut  if  any  such  f)fflcial  existed,  the  jierformance  of  his 
ot^ici'  in  churcli  was  altogether  not  only  overlaid  but  extin- 
guished by  tlic  great  rough  "  view-halloo"  sort  of  voice  of 
my  uncle.     lie  never  mi.ssed  going  to  church,  and  never 


46  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

missed  a  word  of  the  responses,  -\vliich  were  given  in  far 
louder  tones  than  those  of  the  vicar.  Something  of  a 
hymn  was  always  attempted,  I  remember,  by  the  rustic  con- 
gregation; with  what  sort  of  musicaleffect  may  be  imag- 
ined! I  don't  think  my  Uncle  Meetkerke  could  have  dis- 
tinguished much  between  their  efforts  and  the  music  of 
the  spheres.  But  the  singers  were  so  A\ell  pleased  with 
the  exercise  that  they  Avere  apt  to  prolong  it,  as  ray  uncle 
thought,  somewhat  unduly.  And  on  such  occasions  he 
would  cut  the  performance  short  with  a  rasping  "That's 
enough!"  which  effectually  brought  it  to  an  abrupt  con- 
clusion. The  very  short  sermon — probably  a  better  one 
for  the  purpose  in  hand  than  South  or  Andrews  would  have 
preached — having  been  brought  to  an  end,  my  uncle  would 
sing  out  to  the  vicar,  as  he  was  descending  the  pulpit 
stairs,  "Come  up  to  dinner.  Skinner!"  And  then  we  all 
marched  out,  while  the  rustics,  still  retaining  their  places 
till  we  were  fairly  out  of  the  door,  made  their  obeisances 
as  Ave  passed.  All  which  phenomena,  strongly  contrasted 
as  they  were  with  the  decorous  if  somewhat  sleepy  ])er- 
formance  in  my  grandfather's  church  at  Ileckfield,  greatly 
excited  my  interest.  I  remember  that  I  had  no  dislike  to 
attending  service  either  at  Ileckfield  or  Julians,  while  I 
intensely  disliked  making  one  of  a  London  congregation. 

If  I  remember  right  there  Mere  two  or  three  Dissenters 
and  their  families  at  Ileckfield,  generally  considered  by 
their  neighbors  much  as  so  many  Chinese  settled  among 
them  might  have  been— as  unaccountably  strange  and  as 
objectionable.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  existed  at  Julians; 
and  I  take  it,  as  far  as  may  be  judged  from  my  uncle's  gen- 
eral tone  and  manner  in  managing  his  parish,  that  any  in- 
dividual guilty  of  such  monstrous  and  unnatural  depravity 
would  at  once  have  been  consigned  to  the  parish  stocks. 

Mr.  Meetkei'ke  was,  as  I  have  said,  an  active  magistrate. 
But  only  one  instance  of  his  activity  in  this  respect  dwells 
in  my  recollection.  I  remember  to  have  seen,  in  the  non- 
descript little  room  that  he  called  his  study,  a  collection 
of  some  ten  or  a  dozen  very  nasty-looking  pots,  with  some 
white,  ])asty  looking  substance  in  each  of  them,  and  to  have 
wondered  greatly  what  mystery  could  have  been  attached 


AT   HARROW.  47 

to  them.  I  learned  from  the  butler's  curt  word  of  infor- 
mation that  they  were  connected  with  my  uncle's  magis- 
terial duties,  and  my  mind  immediately  began  to  con- 
struct all  kinds  of  imaginings  about  Avholesale  poisonings. 
I  had  heard  the  story  of  the  "Untori"  at  Milan,  and  had 
little  doubt  that  we  were  in  the  midst  of  some  such  horri- 
ble consjjiracy.  A  few  days  later  I  learned  that  the  nastj'- 
looking  pots  were  the  result  of  a  magisterial  raid  among 
the  bakers,  and  contained  nothing  worse  than  alum. 

These  reminiscences  of  Julians  and  its  little  world  re- 
curred to  me  when  speaking  of  my  father's  financial  posi- 
tion at  the  time  he  took  a  farm  at  Harrow  and  built  a 
handsome  house  on  another  man's  land.  He  Avas  at  that 
time  Mr.  Meetkerke's  declared  heir,  and  would  doubtless 
have  inherited  his  property  in  due  time  had  childless  old 
Mrs.  Meetkerke  lived.  But  one  day  she  unexpectedly  took 
off  her  green  habit  for  the  last  time,  and  in  a  day  or  two 
was  laid  under  yet  more  perennial  green  in  the  little  church- 
yard !  Mr.  Meetkerke  was  at  that  time  over  sixty.  But  he 
was  as  fine  an  old  man  physically  as  anybody  could  wish 
to  see.  Before  long  he  married  a  young  wife,  and  became 
the  father  of  six  children!  It  was  of  course  a  tremendous 
blow  to  my  father,  and  never,  as  I  can  say  from  much  sub- 
sequent information,  was  such  a  blow  better  or  more  brave- 
ly borne.  As  for  myself,  I  cannot  remember  that  tlie  cir- 
cumstance impressed  me  as  having  any  bearing  whatso- 
ever on  my  personal  fate  and  fortunes.  In  after-years  I 
lieard  it  asserted  in  more  than  one  quarter  that  my  father 
liad  in  a  great  measure  himself  to  thank  for  his  disap- 
])ointment.  lie  was  a  Liberal  in  politics  after  the  fashion 
of  those  days  (which  would  make  excellent  Conservatism 
in  these),  while  INIr.  ^rcetkerke  was  a  Tory  of  the  very 
oldest  school.  'J'he  Tory  uncle  was  very  far  indeed  from 
being  an  intellectual  match  for  his  Liberal  nejihew,  a!id  no 
doubt  used  to  talk  in  Ins  fine  old  hunting-field  voice  a 
great  deal  of  nonsense  which  no  consideration  of  cither 
affection,  resj)ect,  or  jirudence  could  induce  my  father  to 
sj)are.  I  fi-ar  he  used  to  jump  on  the  hearty  old  squire 
very  persistently,  with  the  result  d  hi  lofu/xe  of  ceasing 
to  be  a  persond  (jratd  to  the  old  man.     It   ///"//  be  that 


48  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

had  it  been  otherwise  he  might  have  sought  affection 
and  companionship  elsewhere  than  from  a  young  wife. 
But  .  .  .   ! 

My  father,  as  I  have  said,  struggled  bravely  wath  fort- 
une, but,  as  far  as  I  have  ever  been  able  to  learn,  witli  ever- 
increasing  insuccess.  His  practice  as  a  barrister  dwin- 
dled away  gradually  till  it  became  not  worth  while  to 
keep  chambers;  and  his  farming  accounts  showed  very 
frequently — every  year,  I  suspect — a  deficit. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  selecting  Harrow  as  his  scene  of 
rustication  had  been  the  existence  of  the  school  there.  I 
and  my  brothers  were  all  of  us  destined  from  our  cradles  to 
become  Wykehamists,  and  it  was  never  my  father's  inten- 
tion that  Harrow,  instead  of  Winchester,  should  be  our 
definitive  place  of  education.  But  the  idea  was  that  we 
might,  before  going  to  Winchester,  avail  ourselves  of  the 
right  to  attend  his  parish  school,  which  John  Lyon  be- 
queathed to  the  parishioners  of  Harrow. 

I  Avent  to  Winchester  at  ten  years  old.  The  time  for 
me  to  do  so  did  not  wholly  depend  on  the  w^U  of  my  par- 
ents, for  the  admission  in  those  days,  as  in  all  former  days 
up  to  quite  recent  times,  was  by  nomination  in  this  wise. 
There  were  six  electors:  1,  the  Warden  of  New  College 
(otherwise,  more  accurately  in  accordance  with  the  terms 
of  Wykeham's  foundation,  the  College  of  St.  JNIary  Win- 
ton  ^j»roy>(3  Winton);  2,  the  Warden  of  Winchester  Col- 
lege; 3,  the  Sub-warden  of  Winchester;  4,  the  "  Informa- 
tor"  or  head -master  of  Winchester;  and  5  and  6,  two 
"Posers,"  sent  yearly  by  New  College,  according  to  a 
cycle  framed  ad  hoc,  to  the  AVinchester  election.  It  was 
at  the  election  which  took  place  in  July  that  all  vacancies 
among  the  seventy  scholars,  who,  together  with  the  war- 
den, fellows,  two  masters,  chaplains,  and  choristers,  con- 
stituted the  members  of  Wykehain's  foundation,  Avere 
filled.  The  vacancies  were  caused  either  by  the  election 
of  scholars  to  be  fellows  of  New  College,  or  by  their  su- 
perannuation at  eighteen  years  of  age,  or  by  their  with- 
drawal from  the  school.  The  number  of  vacancies  in  any 
year  was,  therefore,  altogether  uncertain.  The  first  two 
vacancies  were  filled  l)y  boys  who  came  in  as  "College 


AT   HARROW.  49 

Founders,"  i.  e.,  as  of  kin  to  the  founder.  Of  course  the 
bishop's  kin  could  be  only  collateral;  and  I  remember 
that  "the  best  blood"  was  considered  to  be  that  of  the 
Twistletons.  Originally  there  had  been  an  absolute  pref- 
erence for  those  who  could  show  such  relationship.  But, 
as  time  went  on,  it  became  apparent  that  the  entire  col- 
lege would  thus  be  filled  with  founder's  kin;  and  it  was 
determined  that  two  such  only  should  be  admitted  to 
Winchester  every  year,  and  two  only  sent  out  to  fellow- 
ships at  New  College.  Even  so  the  proj^ortion  of  fellow- 
ships at  the  Oxford  college  awarded  to  founder's  kin  was 
large,  for  it  was  reckoned  in  those  days  that  the  average 
vacancies  at  New  College,  which  were  caused  only  by- 
death,  marriage,  or  the  acceptance  of  a  college  living, 
amounted  to  seven  in  two  years,  of  which  the  founder's 
kin  took  four.  And  this  rule  operated  with  certain  regu- 
larity. For  the  superannuation  at  eighteen  did  not  apply 
to  founder's  kin,  who  remained  in  the  school,  be  their  age 
what  it  might,  till  they  went  to  New  College. 

These  two  boys  of  founder's  kin  were  admitted  by  the 
votes  of  the  six  electors.  After  theni  came  the  boy  nom- 
inated by  the  Warden  of  New  College;  then  the  nominee 
of  the  Warden  of  Winchester;  and  so  on  till  the  eighth 
vacancy  was  filled  by  the  nominee  of  the  junior  "  Poser." 
Then  a  ninth  vacancy  was  taken  by  the  Warden  of  New 
College's  second  nomination,  and  so  on.  Of  course  the 
vacancies  for  Winchester  were  much  more  numerous  than 
those  for  the  Oxford  college;  and  it  often  happened  that 
the  "Poser's"  second,  or  sometimes  even  third,  nomina- 
tion iiad  a  very  good  chance  of  getting  in  in  the  course  of 
the  year.  The  cycle  for  "  Posers,"  which  I  have  men- 
tioned, allowed  it  to  be  known  who  would  be  "  Poser"  for 
a  given  year  many  3'ears  in  advance;  and  the  senior  "  Pos- 
er's" first  nomination  for  1820  had  been  promised  to  me 
before  I  was  out  of  my  cradle.  lie  was  the  Rev.  Mr. 
LipscomV),  who  subsecjuently  became  IJishop  of  Jamaica. 
It  was  written,  therefore,  in  the  book  of  fate  that  I  was 
to  go  to  AN'iiH  Iiester  in  the  year  ls20,  when  I  should  be  ten 
years  old. 

That  time,  however,  was  not  yet;  but  was  looked  for- 
.3 


50 


WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 


ward  to  by  me  with  a  somewhat  weighty  sense  of  the  in- 
evitability of  destiny.  And  I  can  well  remember  medi- 
tating on  the  three  fateful  epochs  which  awaited  me — to 
wit,  having  certain  teeth  taken  out  in  the  immediate  fut- 
ure; going  to  AVinchester  mthc  paido  j^ost  fuhrmm  ;  and 
being  married  in  the  ultimate  consummation  of  things. 
All  three  seemed  to  me  to  need  being  faced  with  a  certain 
dogged  fortitude  of  endurance.  But  I  think  that  the  ter- 
rors of  the  first  loomed  the  largest  in  my  imagination, 
doubtless  by  virtue  of  its  greater  proximity. 

I  remember,  too,  at  a  very  early  age  maintaining  in  my 
own  mind,  if  not  in  argument  with  others,  that  to  be  brave 
one  must  be  very  much  afraid  and  act  in  despite  of  fear, 
and  uninfluenced  by  it,  and  that  not  to  fear  at  all,  as  I 
heard  predicated  of  themselves  by  sundry  contemporaries, 
indicated  simply  stupidity.  And  when  the  day  for  the 
dentist  came  my  heart  was  in  my  boots,  but  they  carried 
me  unfalteringly  to  St.  Martin's  Lane  all  the  same. 

At  present,  however,  we  are  at  Harrow,  getting  into  my 
father's  new  house,  and  establishing  ourselves  in  our  new 
home.  It  was  soon  arranged  that  I  was  to  attend  the 
school,  scarcely,  as  I  remember,  as  a  regular  inscribed 
scholar  attending  the  lessons  in  the  schoolroom,  but  as  a 
private  pupil  of  the  Rev.  Mark  Drury.  I  was  about  eight 
years  old  at  the  time,  and  I  suppose  should  hardly  have 
been  accepted  as  an  admitted  member  of  the  school. 

At  that  time  Dr.  Butler,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Peter- 
borousfh,  w^as  the  head-master.  He  was  not  the  right  man 
in  the  right  place.  He  was,  I  take  it,  far  more  adapted 
for  a  bishop  than  a  school-master.  IMoreover,  there  were 
certain  difliculties  in  his  position  not  necessarily^  connected 
with  the  calling  of  a  head-master.  He  had  succeeded  Dr. 
Drury  in  the  head -mastership,  and  he  found  the  school 
full  of  Drurys.  Mark,  the  brotlier  of  Dr.  Drury,  was  the 
second  master;  a  Mr.  Evans,  a  respectable,  quiet  nonenti- 
ty, was  the  third;  Harry  Drury,  a  son  of  the  old  doctor, 
was  the  fourth,  and  was  the  most  energetic  and  influential 
man  in  the  place;  William  Drury,  the  son  of  Mark,  was 
the  fifth;  and  two  young  men  of  the  names  of  Mills  and 
Batten  were  the  sixth  and  seventh  masters.     They  were 


AT    HARROW.  51 

all  in  priests'  orders,  and  all  received  as  many  boarders  as 
they  could  get.  For  the  objectionable  system,  which 
made  the  fortunes  of  the  masters  far  more  dependent  on 
their  trade  as  victuallers  than  on  their  profession  as  teach- 
ers, had  been  copied  from  Eton,  with  the  further  evil  con- 
sequence of  swamping  John  Lyon's  parochial  school  by 
the  creation  of  a  huge  boarding-school.  This,  however 
eminently  successful,  has  no  proper  claim  to  be  called  a 
"  public  school,"  save  by  a  modern  laxity  of  language, 
which  has  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  only  meaning  or 
possible  definition  of  a  "public  school  "  is  one  the  founda- 
tion of  which  was  intended,  not  for  a  parish  or  other  dis- 
trict, but  for  all  England.  If  merely  success,  and  conse- 
quent size,  be  held  to  confer  a  claim  to  the  title,  it  is  clear 
that  there  is  no  "  private  "  school  which  would  not  become 
a  "  public  school "  to-morrow  if  the  master  and  proprietor 
of  it  could  command  a  sufficient  amount  of  success.  And 
even  then  the  question  would  remain.  What  amount  of 
success  must  that  be  ? 

The  world  in  general,  however,  dislikes  accuracy  of 
speaking.  And  Harrow  was  then,  and  has  been  since, 
abundantly  large  enough  and  successful  enough  to  be 
called  and  considered  a  "  public  school  "  by  the  generality, 
who  never  take  the  trouble  to  ask  themselves,  What  makes 
it  such  ? 

Dr.  Butler  was  eminently  a  gentleman,  extremely  suave 
in  manni'r,  gentle  in  dealing  with  those  under  his  author- 
ity, mild  and  moderate  in  his  ideas  of  discijtline,  a  genu- 
inely scholarly  man  in  tastes  and  pursuits,  though  prob- 
ably not  what  experts  in  such  a  matter  would  have  called 
a  profound  scholar.  But  he  had  not  the  energetic  hand 
needed  for  ruling  a  large  school;  and  his  rule  was  not  a 
success.  ]\I:irk  Drury,  though  from  the  old  Drury  con- 
necti<jn  his  house  was  always  full  of  pupils,  cannot  be  said 
to  have  exercised  any  influence  at  all  on  the  general  con- 
dition and  management  of  the  school  by  reason  of  the 
extraordinary  and  abnormal  corpulence  which  kept  him 
prettv  well  a  prisoner  to  the  arm-chair  in  his  study.  He 
ha<l  long  since,  at  the  time  when  I  first  knew  him,  aban- 
doned the  practice  of  "going  up,"  as  it  was  technically 


52  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

called,  i.  €.,  of  climbing  the  last  portion  of  Harrow  Hill 
through  the  village  street.  On  this  topmost  part  of  the 
hill  are  situated  the  church,  the  churchyard,  and  the 
school-house,  rebuilt,  enlarged,  beautified,  since  my  day; 
and  this  "  going  up  "  had  to  be  performed  by  all  the  mas- 
ters and  all  the  boys  every  time  school  \vas  attended.  But 
of  this  climb  Mark  Drury  had  been  incapable  for  many 
years,  solely  by  reason  of  his  immense  corpulence.  Natu- 
rally a  small,  delicately-made  man,  with  small  hands  and 
feet,  he  had  become  in  old  age  the  fattest  man  I  think  I 
ever  saw.  He  used  to  sit  in  his  study,  and  there  conduct 
the  business  of  tuition,  leaving  to  others  the  work  of  hear- 
ing lessons  in  school. 

His  house  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  com- 
fortable of  all  the  boarding-houses — a  fact  due  to  the  un- 
stinting liberality,  careful  supervision,  and  motherly  kind- 
ness of  "  Mother  Mark,"  an  excellent  and  admirable  old 
lady,  than  whom  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  any 
one  more  fitted  for  the  position  she  occupied.  The  un- 
stinting liberality,  it  is  fair  to  say,  characterized  all  the 
Drury  houses;  and  probably  the  others  also.  But  for  truly 
motherly  care  there  was  but  one  "  Mother  Mark."  "  Old 
Mark  "  was  exceedingly  popular,  as,  indeed,  he  deserved 
to  be,  for  a  more  kindly-natured  man  never  existed.  He 
had  an  old-fashioned  belief  in  the  virtues  of  the  rod;  and 
though  his  bodily  infirmity  combined  with  his  good-nat- 
ure to  make  him  sparing  in  the  application  of  it,  a  flog- 
ging was  at  his  hands  sufficiently  disagreeable  to  make 
one  desirous  of  avoiding  it.  "  Your  clock,"  he  would  say, 
"  requires  to  be  wound  up  every  Monday  morning,"  mean- 
ing that  a  Monday-morning  flogging  was  a  good  bcgiiming 
of  the  week.  But  the  rods  Avere  kept  in  a  cupboard  in  the 
study — how  well  I  remember  the  Bluebeard-closet  sort  of 
reputation  which  surrounded  it! — and  the  cupboard  was 
always  kept  locked.  And  very  often  it  hap])ened  that, 
somehow  or  other,  the  key  was  in  the  keeping  of  Mrs. 
Drury.  Then  a  message  would  be  sent  to  Mrs.  Drury  for 
the  key,  and  very  probably  the  proposed  patient  was  the 
messenger,  in  which  case — and  it  is  strange  that  the  re- 
currence of  the  fact  did  not  suggest  suspicion  to  old  Mark 


AT  HARROW.  63 

— it  almost  invariably  happened  that  Mrs.  Drury  was  very 
sorrv,  but  she  could  not  find  the  key  anywhere!  There 
never  surely  was  a  key  so  frequently  mislaid  as  the  key  of 
that  terrible  cupboard! 

Well,  it  was  arranged  that  I  was  to  go  every  day  to 
Mark  Drury's  study,  not,  as  I  have  said,  as  a  regular  mem- 
ber of  the  school,  but  to  get  such  tuition  as  might  be 
picked  up  from  the  genius  loci,  and  from  such  personal 
teaching  as  the  old  man  could  bestow  on  me  at  moments 
unoccupied  by  his  own  pupils.  And  this  arrangement,  it 
must  be  understood,  was  entirely  a  matter  of  friendship — 
one  incident  of  the  many  years'  friendship  between  my 
parents  and  all  the  Drurys.  There  was  no  question  of  any 
honorarium  in  the  matter. 

My  father's  appetite  for  teaching  was  such  that  he 
would,  I  am  very  sure,  have  much  preferred  keeping  my 
brother  and  myself  under  his  sole  tuition.  But  he  used 
to  drive  up  to  London  in  his  gig  daily  to  his  chambers  in 
Lincoln's  Inn,  for  he  still  struggled  to  hope  on  at  his  pro- 
fession. (I  remember  that  these  drives  down  in  the  dark 
winter  evenings  became  a  source  of  some  anxiety  when  a 
messenger  travelling  with  despatches  for  the  French  min- 
ister, who  at  that  time  rented  Lord  Korth wick's  house  at 
Harrow,  was  mysteriously  murdered  and  his  despatches 
stolen.)  And  it  thus  became  necessary  that  some  means 
should  be  found  for  preventing  us  boys  from  making  ecole 
buiasonni^re  in  the  fields  and  under  the  hedgerows. 

I  do  not  think  I  jjrofited  much  by  my  attendance  at  old 
]Mark's  ]in)>il-room.  The  boys  whose  lessons  he  was  hear- 
ing stood  in  a  row  in  front  of  his  arm-chair,  and  1  sat  be- 
hind him,  supposed  to  be  intently  occupied  in  conning  the 
task  he  had  set  me,  in  prejiaralion  for  the  moment  when, 
the  class  before  him  having  been  dismissed,  he  would  have 
little  me,  all  alone,  in  front  of  him  for  a  few  niinntes, 
while  anoiht-r  class  was  mustering. 

How  I  hated  it  all!  How  very  much  more  bitterly  I 
hated  it  than  I  ever  hated  any  subsequent  school  troubles! 
What  a  pariah  I  was  among  those  denizens  of  Mark's  and 
otlier  piipil-iiMdus!  For  I  was  a  "fnwii  boy,"  "village 
boy  "  wouM  have  been  a  more  correct  di-.'^ignation;  one  of 


5-i  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

the  very  few  who  b}^  the  terms  of  the  founder's  will  had 
any  right  to  be  there  at  all ;  and  was  in  consequence  an 
object  of  scorn  and  contumely  on  the  part  of  all  the  pay- 
ing pupils.  I  was  a  charity  boy.  But  at  Winchester  sub- 
sequently I  was  far  more  of  a  charity  boy,  for  William  of 
Wykeham's  foundation  provided  me  with  food  and  lodg- 
ing as  well  as  tuition  ;  whereas  I  claimed  and  received 
nothing  save  a  modicum  of  the  latter  at  the  hands  of  those 
who  enjoyed  and  administered  John  Lyon's  bounty.  Yet, 
though  at  Winchester  there  were  only  seventy  scholars 
and  a  hundred  and  thirty  private  pupils  of  the  head-mas- 
ter, or  "  commoners,"  there  was  no  trace  whatsoever  of 
any  analogous  feeling,  no  slightest  arrogation  of  any  su- 
periority, social  or  other,  on  the  part  of  the  commoner 
over  the  collegian.  In  fact  the  matter  was  rather  the 
other  way;  any  difference  between  the  son  of  the  presum- 
ably richer  man  and  the  presumably  poorer  having  been 
merged  and  lost  sight  of  entirely  in  the  higher  scholastic 
dignity  of  the  college  boy. 

I  remember  also,  more  vividly  than  I  could  wish,  the 
bullying  to  which  I  and  others  were  subjected  at  Harrow. 
There  was  much  of  a  very  brutal  description.  And  in 
this  respect  also  the  difference  at  Winchester  Avas  very 
marked.  The  theory  of  the  two  places  on  the  subject  was 
entirely  different,  with  the  result  I  have  stated.  At  Har- 
row, in  those  days — how  it  may  be  now  I  know  not — no 
"  fagging "  was  authorized  or  })ermitted  by  the  masters. 
No  boy  had  any  legitimate  authority  over  any  other  boy. 
And  inasmuch  as  it  was,  is,  and  ever  will  be  in  every  large 
school  impossible  to  achieve  such  a  Saturnian  state  of 
things,  the  residt  was  that  the  bigger  and  stronger  assumed 
an  authority  supported  by  sheer  violence  over  the  smaller 
and  weaker.  At  AVinchester,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sub- 
jection of  those  below  them  in  college  to  the  "  prefects," 
or  upper  class,  was  not  only  recognized,  but  enforced, 
by  the  authorities.  It  thus  came  to  pass  that  many  a 
big,  hulking  fellow  was  subjected  to  the  authority  of  a 
"  prefect"  whom  he  could  have  tossed  over  his  head.  It 
was  an  authority  nobody  dreamed  of  resisting;  a  matter 
of  course;  not  a  rule  of  the  stronger  supported  by  violence. 


AT   HARROW.  55 

And  the  result  —  contributed  to,  also,  by  other  arrange- 
ments, of  which  I  shall  speak  hereafter — was  that  any- 
thing of  the  nature  of  "bullying"  was  infinitely  rarer  at 
Winchester  than  at  Harrow. 

Despite  old  Mark's  invariable  good-nature  and  kindness, 
my  hours  in  his  study  were  very  unhappy  ones;  and  I  was 
hardly  disposed  to  consider  as  a  misfortune  a  severe  illness 
Avhich  attacked  me  and  my  brother  Henry,  and  for  the 
nonce  put  an  end  to  them.  Very  shortly  it  became  clear 
that  we  were  both  suffering  from  a  bad  form  of  typhus. 
How  was  such  an  attack  to  be  accounted  for?  My  father's 
new  house  was  visited,  and  examined,  and  found  to  be 
above  suspicion.  But  further  inquiry  elicited  the  fact  that 
we  boys  had  passed  a  half-hour  before  breakfast  in  watch- 
ing the  proceedings  of  some  men  engaged  in  cleaning  and 
restoring  an  old  drain  connected  w^ith  a  neighboring  farm- 
house. The  case  was  clear!  It  would  seem,  however, 
that  the  proper  mode  of  treatment  Avas  not  so  clear  to  the 
Harrow  general  practitioner — a  village  apothecary  of  the 
old  school,  who,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  was  the  only 
available  medico  at  Harrow  in  those  far-off  days.  He 
treated  us  with  calomel,  and  very,  very  nearly  let  me  slip 
through  his  hands.  It  would  have  been  quite,  but  for  a 
fortunate  chance.  Amoni;  our  Harrow  friends  was  a  Mrs. 
Edwards,  the  widow  of  a  once  very  well-known  bookseller 
— not  a  publisher,  but  a  scholarly,  and  indeed  learned, 
seller  of  old  books — who  had,  I  believe,  left  her  a  consider- 
able fortune.  She  was  a  highly  cultured  and  very  clever 
woman,  and  a  special  friend  of  my  mother's.  Now  it  so 
happi-necl  that  a  Dr.  Dutt,  a  physician,  her  brother,  or 
brother-in-law,  I  forget  which,  paid  her  a  visit  just  at  the 
time  we  boys  were  at  the  worst.  Mrs.  Edwards  brought 
him  to  our  bedsi<les.  I  was  altogether  unconscious,  and 
had  been  raving  about  masters  coming  in  at  the  window 
to  drag  UH'  off  to  the  pupil-room.  .My  knowledge  of  what 
followed,  therefore,  is  derived  wholly  from  my  mother's 
subsequent  telling.  Dr.  IJutt,  having  learned  the  treat- 
ment to  which  we  had  been  subjected,  said  only,  "No  more 
calomel,  I  think.  T.ct  me  have  a  glass  of  ])()rt  wine  ina- 
medialely."     And  with   his  finger  on  my  wrist,  he  pro- 


5G  WUAT   I    REMEMBER. 

ceeded  to  administer  a  teaspoonf  ul  at  a  time  of  the  cordial. 
A  few  more  visits  from  Dr.  Butt  set  us  fairly  on  the  way 
to  recovery;  and  from  that  day,  some  sixty-eight  years 
ago,  to  the  present,  I  have  never  passed  one  day  in  bed 
from  illness. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
AT  HARROW — {co7itinued) . 

Another  incident  of  these  boyish  years  of  a  very  dif- 
ferent complexion  has  made  a  far  deeper  impression  on 
my  memory.  It  must  have  been,  to  the  best  of  my  re- 
membrance, about  the  same  time,  probably  some  six 
months  later  in  the  same  year,  that  it  was  decided  that  I 
was  to  accompany  my  father  and  mother  in  a  "  long  vaca- 
tion "  ramble  which  had  long  been  projected.  My  father's 
method  of  travel  on  this  excursion,  which  was  to  include 
parts  of  Sussex,  Hampshire,  Wilts,  Devon,  Somerset,  and 
Monmouth,  was  to  drive  my  mother  and  myself  in  his 
gig,  accompanied  by  a  servant  riding  another  horse,  who 
was  provided  with  a  pair  of  traces  to  hook  on  as  tandem 
whenever  the  nature  of  the  road  required  such  assistance. 
I  think  that  this  tour  afforded  me  some  of  the  happiest 
days  and  hours  I  have  ever  known.  I  can  never  forget 
the  ecstacy  of  delight  with  which  I  looked  forward  to  it, 
and  the  preparations  I  made — suggested  probably,  some  of 
them,  by  the  experiences  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  The  dis- 
tance and  differentiation  between  me  and  other  boys  of  my 
acquaintance,  wliicli  was  caused  by  my  destination  to  this 
great  adventure,  I  felt  to  be  such  as  that  which  may  be 
supposed  to  exist  between  Livingstone  and  the  stay-at- 
home  mortals  wlio  read  his  books. 

We  started  after  breakfast  one  fine  morning,  "  George," 
the  footman,  turned  into  groom  and  courier,  riding  after 
the  gig.  I  considered  this  a  disajtpointingly  tame  proceed- 
ing. I  had  been  up  myself  considerably  before  daylight, 
and  considered  that,  looking  to  the  arduous  nature  of  the 
journey  before  us  (we  were  to  sleep  at  Dorking  that  night), 
we  ought  at  least  to  have  been  on  the  road  while  the  less 
adventurous  part  of  the  world  were  still  asleep. 

We  had  not  proceeded  manv  miles  before  an  anxiri 
3* 


58  WHAT    I   REMEMBER. 

aliquid  disclosed  itself  of  a  very  distressing  kind.  I  was 
seated  on  a  little  box  placed  on  the  floor  of  the  gig  be- 
tween the  knees  of  my  father  and  mother,  and  was  "as 
happy  as  a  prince,"  or  probably  much  happier  than  any 
contemporaneous  prince  then  in  Christendom,  when  my 
father  produced  from  out  of  the  driving-seat  beneath  him 
a  Delphin  "  Virgil,"  and  intimated  to  me  that  our  journey 
must  by  no  means  entail  an  entire  interruption  of  my  edu- 
cation ;  that  our  travelling  was  not  at  all  incompatible 
with  a  little  study;  and  that  he  was  ready  to  hear  me  con- 
strue. It  may  be  readily  imagined  how  much  such  "  study  " 
was  likely  to  profit  me.  Every  incident  of  the  road,  every 
M\agon,  every  stage-coach  Ave  met,  every  village  church 
seen  across  the  fields,  every  milestone  even,  was  a  matter 
of  intense  interest  to  me.  Had  I  been  Argus-eyed  every 
eye  would  have  been  busy.  I  remember  that  my  mother 
remonstrated,  but  in  vain.  And  an  hour  or  two  of  other- 
wise intense  delight  was  turned  into  something  which  it  is 
scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  call  torture.  I  think,  how- 
ever, that  my  mother  must  have  subsequently  renewed  her 
pleadings,  for  on  the  second  day's  journey  the  "Virgil" 
was  not  brought  out.  It  was  reserved  for  the  days  when 
we  were  stationary,  but  no  longer  poisoned  our  absolute 
travel. 

If  I  never  became  a  distinguished  scholar  it  was  assur- 
edly from  no  want  of  urgency  in  season  and  out  of  season 
on  the  part  of  my  poor  father.  But  not  even  Virgil  him- 
self, backed  by  an  "Eton  Latin  Grammar"  and  a  small 
travelling-dictionary,  could  altogether  destroy  the  manifold 
delights  of  that  journey.  I  must  not  inflict  on  my  reader 
all,  or  a  tithe,  of  my  topographical  reminiscences;  but  I 
will  relate  one  little  adventure  which  went  near  to  saving 
me,  not  only  from  this  volume,  but  from  all  that  half  a 
century,  and  more,  of  subsequent  pen-work  may  have  in- 
flicted on  me.  It  was  at  Gloucester.  My  parents  and  I 
had  gone  to  the  cathedral  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  be- 
fore the  time  for  service  on  a  Sunday  morning.  The  great 
bell  was  being  rung — an  operation  which  was  at  that  time 
performed  by  seven  bell-ringers  down  in  the  body  of  the 
church.     One  large  rope,  descending  from  an  aperture  in 


AT  HARROW.  59 

the  vault,  was,  at  some  dozen  or  so  of  feet  from  the  pave- 
ment, divided  into  seven — one  for  each  of  the  bell-ringers. 
Now  it  so  happened  that  on  that  day  one  of  the  men  was 
absent  from  his  post,  and  one  rope  hung  loose  and  unoc- 
cupied. No  sooner  had  I  espied  this  state  of  things  than 
I  rushed  forward  and  seized  the  vacant  rope,  intending  to 
add  my  efforts  to  those  of  the  six  men  at  work.  But  it  so 
happened  that  at  the  moment  when  I  thus  clutched  the 
rope  the  men  had  raised  the  bell,  and  of  course  at  the  end 
of  their  pull  allowed  the  ropes  to  fly  upwards  through 
their  hands.  But  I,  knowing  nothing  of  bell- ringing, 
clung  tightly  to  my  rope,  and  was  of  course  swung  up 
from  the  pavement  with  terrific  speed.  Fortunately  the 
height  of  the  vault  was  so  great  as  to  allow  the  full  swing 
of  the  bell  to  complete  itself  without  bringing  me  into 
contact  with  the  roof.  The  men  cried  out  to  me  to  hold 
on  tight.  I  did  so,  and  descended  safely — so  unharmed 
that  I  was  very  desirous  of  repeating  the  experiment, 
which,  as  may  be  supposed,  was  not  allowed.  I  can  pull 
a  bell  more  knowincflv  now. 

The  charming  old  church  at  Gloucester  was  not  kept 
and  cared  for  in  those  days  as  it  is  now — a  remark  which 
is  applicable,  as  recent  visits  have  shown  me,  to  nearly  all 
the  cathedral  churches  in  England.  I  may  observe  also, 
since  one  object  of  these  pages  is  to  mark  the  social 
changes  in  English  life  since  my  young  days,  that  the 
im])rovoment  in  the  tone  and  manner  of  performing  the 
choral  service  in  our  cathedrals  is  as  striking  as  the  in- 
creased care  for  the  fabrics.  It  used  for  the  most  part 
to  be  a  careless,  perfunctory,  and  not  very  reverent  or 
decorous  performance  when  George  the  Third  was  King. 
Those  were  the  days  when  one  minor  canon  could  be 
backed  to  give  another  to  "  Pontius  Pilate  "  in  the  Creed, 
and  beat  him!     Other  times,  other  manners! 

I  think  that  the  jxiints  in  that  still  wcll-remembored 
tour  that  most  of  all  delighted  me  were,  first  of  all,  Lynton 
and  Lynniouth,  on  the  north  coa«t  of  Devon;  then  the  banks 
of  the  Wye  from  ('he])stow  to  Ross;  and  thirdly,  Raglan 
Castle.  I  had  already  read  the  "Jlysteries  of  Udolpho," 
with  more  enjoyment  probably  than  any  other  reading  has 


60  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

ever  afFortled  me.  It  was  an  ecstasy  of  delight,  tempered 
only  by  the  impossibilitj'  of  gratifying  my  intense  longing 
to  start  fortlnvitli  to  see  the  places  and  countries  described. 
And  when  I  did  in  long-after  years  see  tliem  !  Oh,  Mrs. 
Ratcliffe,  how  could  you  tell  such  tales!  What!  this  the 
lovely  Provence  of  my  dreams  ?  But  I  was  fresh  from 
''The  Mysteries,"  and  full  of  faith  when  I  went  to  Raglan, 
and  strove  to  apply,  at  least  as  a  matter  of  possibility,  the  in- 
cidents of  the  romance  to  the  localities  of  the  delightful  ruin. 
Nor  was  Raglan  in  those  days  cared  for  with  the  loving 
care  now  bestowed  on  it  by  the  Duke  of  Somerset.  I  have 
heard  people  complain  of  the  restrictions,  and  of  the  small 
entrance  fee  now  demanded  for  admittance  to  the  ruins, 
and  regret  the  days  when  the  traveller  could,  as  in  my 
time,  wander  over  every  part  of  it  at  will.  All  that  was 
very  charming,  but  the  place  was  not  as  beautiful  as  it  is 
now.  The  necessary  expense  for  the  due  conservation  of 
the  ruins  must  be  very  considerable.  And  "U'hen  one  hears, 
as  I  did  recently  at  Raglan,  that  steam  and  bank-holidays 
have  brought  as  many  as  fifteen  hundred  (!)  visitors  to  the 
spot  in  one  day,  it  may  be  easily  imagined  what  the  con- 
dition of  the  place  would  shortly  become  if  careful  restric- 
tions were  not  enforced.  Of  lovely — ever  lovely — Tintern 
the  same  remarks  may  be  made.  Certainly  there  was  a 
charm  in  wandering  there,  as  I  did  when  a  boy,  almost 
justified  by  the  solitude  in  feeling  raj'self  to  be  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  spot.  Now  there  is  a  fine  hotel,  with  waiters 
in  black-tailed  coats,  and  dinners  a  la  carte/  And  huge 
vans  pouring  in  "  tourists "  by  the  thousand.  Between 
four  and  five  thousand  persons,  I  was  told,  visited  Tintern 
in  one  August  daj^ !  Scott  tells  those  who  would  "  view 
fair  Melrose  aright  "  to  "  visit  it  by  the  pale  moonlight." 
But  I  fear  me  that  no  such  precaution  could  secure  solitude, 
though  it  might  beauty,  at  Tintern  in  August.  But  the 
care  bestowed  upon  it  makes  the  place  more  beautiful  than 
ever.  The  guardians,  by  dint  of  locked  gates,  prevent  the 
lovely  sward  from  being  defiled  by  sandwich  papers  and 
empty  bottles,  as  the  neighboring  woods  are.  But  he  who 
would  view  fair  Tintern  aright  had  better  not  visit  it  on 
a  bank-holiday. 


AT   HARROW.  61 

A  similarly  striking  change  between  the  England  of  sixty- 
years  since  and  the  England  of  to-day  may  be  observed  at 
beautiful  Lynmouth  and  Lynton.  The  place  was  a  solitude 
when  my  parents  and  I  visited  it  in,  I  think,  1818.  We 
had  a  narrow  escape  in  driving  down  from  Lynton  to  the 
mouth  of  the  little  stream.  A  low  wall  of  unmortared 
stones  alone  protected  the  road  from  the  edge  of  a  very 
formidable  precipice ;  and  just  at  the  worst  point  the 
horse  my  father  was  driving  took  fright  at  something, 
and,  becoming  unmanageable,  dashed  at  the  low  Avail,  and 
absolutely  got  his  fore-feet  over  it !  "  George,"  riding  the 
other  horse  behind,  was  at  a  hundred  yards  or  so  distance. 
But  my  father,  with  one  bound  to  the  horse's  head,  caught 
him  by  the  bridle,  and,  by  the  sheer  strength  of  his  re- 
markably powerful  frame,  forced  him  back  into  the  road. 
It  was  not  a  rnauvais  quart  d'heure,  but  a  very  mauvais 
quart  de  minute — for  it  was,  I  take  it,  all  over  in  that 
time.  Now  the  road  is  excellent,  and  traversed  daily  in 
the  summer  season  by  some  half-dozen  huge  vans  carrying 
*'  tourists"  from  Ilfracombe  to  Lynton. 

At  the  latter  place,  too,  there  is  a  large  and  extremely 
prettily  situated  hotel,  where,  on  the  occasion  of  my  first 
visit,  I  remember  that  we  obtained  a  modicum  of  bread- 
and-cheese  at  a  lone  cottage.  Even  the  Valley  of  Rocks 
is  not  altogether  what  it  was,  for  the  celebrated  "Castle 
Rock  "  has  now  well-contrived  paths  to  the  top  of  it.  I 
wrote  a  few  months  ago  in  the  book  kept  at  the  hotel,  ad 
hoc  that  I  had  climbed  the  Castle  Rock  more  than  sixty 
years  ago,  and  had  now  repeated  the  feat.  But,  in  truth, 
the  "climb"  was  in  tliose  days  a  dilYcrcnt  alTair.  I  re- 
member ray  mother  had  a  story  of  some  old  friend  of  hers 
having  been  accompanied  by  licr  maid  during  a  ramble 
through  the  Valley  of  Rocks,  and  having  been  told,  when 
she  asked  the  maid  what  she  thought  of  it,  that  she  con- 
sidered it  was  kept  very  untidy  !  And  truly  the  criticism 
miglit  be  repeated  at  the  present  day  not  altogether  un- 
reasonably, for  the  whole  place  is  defiled  by  the  traces  of 
feeding. 

Truly  England,  whether  fur  belter  or  worse,  "  ??on  h piu 
come  erd  prhna .''' 


G:i  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

That  was  my  first  journey  !  Has  any  one  of  the  very 
many  others  which  I  have  undertaken  since  equalled  it  in 
enjoyment  ?  Ah  !  how  sad  was  the  return  to  Harrow  and 
lessons  and  pupil-room  !  And  how  I  wished  that  the  old 
gig,  with  me  on  the  little  box  between  my  parents'  knees, 
could  have  been  bound  on  an  expedition  round  the  world! 

A  leading  feature,  perhaps  I  should  say  the  leading  feat- 
ure, of  the  social  life  of  Harrow  in  those  days  consisted  in 
a  certain  antagonism  between  the  vicar,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cun- 
ningham, and  the  clerical  element  of  the  school  world,  or 
perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  the  Drury  ele- 
ment. Mr.  Cunnint^ham  was  in  those  davs  rather  a  man 
of  mark  among  the  Low-Chnrch  party.  He  was  an  ally 
of  the  Yenns,  of  Daniel  Wilson,  and  that  school,  and  was 
well  known  in  his  day  as  "Velvet-Cushion  Cunningham," 
from  a  little  book  with  that  title  which  he  had  published. 
He  was,  of  course,  an  "evangelical"  of  the  evangelicals; 
and  among  the  seven  masters  of  the  school  there  was  not 
the  slightest — I  must  not  say  taint,  but — savor  of  anything 
of  the  kind.  Dr.  Butler  probably  would  have  found  no 
difficulty  in  living  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  vicar;  but 
the  latter — he  and  his  ways  and  his  doctrines — Avere  espe- 
cially abhorrent  to  the  Drurys.  Of  course  they  were  not 
High-Churchmen  in  the  sense  which  the  term  has  acquired 
in  these  latter  days,  for  nothing  of  the  kind  was  then 
known.  They  Avere  of  the  old-fashioned  sort,  which  had 
come  to  be  somewhat  depreciatingly  spoken  of  as  "  high 
and  drv  !" — though  in  truth  it  is  difficult  to  see  with  what 
justice  the  latter  epithet  could  be  applied  to  many  of  them. 

Harry  Drury,  who  was  perhaps  foremost  in  his  feeling 
of  antagonism  to  the  vicar,  was  a  man  of  decidedly  literary 
tastes,  though  they  shared  his  devotion  with  those  of  a  hon 
vivant.  He  was  a  ripe  scholar,  and  undoubtedly  the  vicar's 
superior  in  talent  and  intellect.  But  he  was  essentially  a 
coarse  man,  coarse  in  manner  and  coarse  in  feeling.  Cun- 
ningham was  the  ro/erse  of  all  this.  He  was,  I  believe, 
the  son  of  a  London  hatter^  but  in  external  manner  and 
appearaTice  he  was  a  more  gentlemanlike  man  than  any  of 
the  Harrow  masters  of  that  day,  save  Dr.  Butler.  He  had 
the  advantage,  too,  of  a  handsome  person  and  good  pres- 


AT    HARROW.  C3 

ence.  But  there  was  a  something  too  suave  and  too  soft, 
carrying  with  it  a  certain  suspicion  of  insincerity  wliich 
prevented  him  from  presenting  a  genuine  specimen  of  the 
real  article.  I  believe  his  father  purchased  the  living  for 
him  under  circumstances  which  wore  not  altogether  free 
from  suspicion  of  simony.  I  know  nothing,  however,  of 
these  circumstances,  and  my  impressions  on  the  subject  are 
doubtless  derived  from  the  flouts  and  skits  of  his  avowed 
enemies  the  Drurvs.  There  was,  I  remember,  a  story  of 
his  having,  soon  after  coming  to  Hanow,  in  conversation 
with  some  of  his  new  parishioners,  attributed  with  much 
self-complacency  his  presentation  to  the  living  to  his  hav- 
ing upon  some  occasion  preached  before  Lord  Northwickl 
— a  result  which  no  Harrow  inhabitant,  clerk  or  layman, 
would  have  believed  in  the  case  of  his  lordship,  then  often 
a  resident  on  his  property  there,  if  the  preacher  had  been 
St.  Paul.  But  again,  Audi  alteram  partem!  which  I  had 
no  chance  of  doing,  for  we,  though  living  on  terms  of 
neighborly  intercourse  with  the  vicar,  were  of  the  Drury 
faction. 

I  remember  well  an  incident  which  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  condition  of  "tension"  which  ])revailed  during 
those  years  in  the  little  Harrow  world.  Mark  Drurj'  had 
two  remarkably  pretty  daughters.  They  were  in  all  re- 
spects as  thoroughly  good  and  charming  girls  as  they 
were  pretty,  and  were  universal  favorites  in  society.  Now 
Mark  Drury's  pew  in  the  parish  church,  where,  of  course, 
lie  never  appeared  himself,  for  the  reason  assigtied  on  a 
former  page,  was  situated  immediately  bi-low  the  ])ulpit. 
And  on  one  occasion  the  vicar  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  the 
two  young  ladies  in  question  laughing  during  his  sermon, 
and  so  far  forgot  liiinself,  and  was  sufliciently  ill-judged, 
indiscreet,  wrong-hcadi-d,  and  wrong-hearted  to  stop  in  his 
discourse,  and,  leaning  over  the  ])ulpit  cushion,  to  say  aloutl 
that  he  wouM  resume  it  when  his  hearers  could  listen  to  it 
with  decency!  The  amount  of  ill-feeling  and  heart-burn- 
ing wliich  the  incident  gave  rise  to  may  be  imagined. 
Harry  Drury,  the  erjusin  of  the  young  hulies,  and,  as  I  have 
said,  Cunniiigliain's  jirincipal  antagonist,  ni-ver  for  a  huig 
time    afterwards   came    within    speaking   tlistance   of   the 


64  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

viear  without  growling  "  Brawler  !"  in  a  perfectly  audible 
voice. 

I  well  remember,  though  I  suppose  it  must  be  mainly 
from  subsequent  hearing  of  it,  the  storm  that  was  raised 
in  the  tea-cup  of  the  Harrow  world  by  the  incident  of 
Byron's  natural  daughter,  AUegra,  having  been  sent  home 
to  be  buried  in  Harrow  Church.  A  solemn  meetinor  was 
held  in  the  vestry,  at  which  the  vicar,  all  the  masters  (ex- 
cept poor  old  Mark),  and  sundry  of  the  leading  parishion- 
ers were  present,  and  at  which  it  was  decided  that  no  stone 
should  be  placed  to  commemorate  the  poor  infant's  name, 
or  mark  the  spot  where  her  remains  rested,  the  principal 
reason  assigned  being  that  such  a  memorial  might  be  in- 
jurious to  the  morals  of  the  Harrow  schoolboys!  Amid 
all  this  Cunningham's  innate  and  invincible  flunkeyism 
asserted  itself,  to  the  immense  amusement  of  the  non-evan- 
gelical part  of  the  society  of  the  place,  by  his  attempt  to 
send  a  message  to  Lord  Byron  through  Harry  Drury, 
Byron's  old  tutor  and  continued  friend,  to  the  effect  that 
he,  Cunningham,  had,  on  reading  Cain,  which  was  then 
scandalizing  the  world,  "  felt  a  profound  admiration  for 
the  genius  of  the  author!"  "  Did  you,  indeed,"  said  Harry 
Drury;  "I  think  it  the  most  blasphemous  publication  that 
ever  came  from  the  pen." 

The  whole  circumstances,  object,  and  upshot  of  this  sin- 
gular vestry  meeting  were  too  tempting  a  subject  to  escape 
my  mother's  satirical  vein.  She  described  the  whole  affair 
in  some  five  hundred  verses,  now  before  me,  in  which  the 
curiously  contrasted  characteristics  of  the  debaters  at  the 
meeting  were  very  cleverly  hit  off.  This  was  afterwards 
shown  to  Harry  Drury,  who,  though  he  himself  was  not 
altogether  spared,  was  so  delighted  with  it  that  he  re- 
warded it  by  the  present  of  a  very  remarkable  autograph 
of  Lord  Byron,  now  in  my  possession.  It  consists  of  a 
quarto  page,  on  which  is  copied  the  little  poem,  "  Weep, 
daughters  of  a  royal  line,"  beginning  with  a  stanza  which 
was  suppressed  in  the  publication.  And  all  round  the 
edges  of  the  MS.  is  an  inscription  stating  that  the  verses 
were  "  copied  for  my  friend,  the  Rev.  Harry  Drur}^" 

Of  course,  all  this  did  not  tend  much  to  harmonize  the 


AT    HARROW.  65 

conflicting  partisans  of  High  and  Low  Church  in  the  Har- 
row world  of  that  day. 

I  may  add  here  another  "  reminiscence  "  of  those  days, 
which  is  not  Avithout  significance  as  an  illustration  of 
manners. 

Among  the  neighbors  at  Harrow  was  a  Mr. (well, 

I  won't  print  the  name,  though  all  the  parties  in  question 
must  long  since,  I  suppose,  have  joined  the  majority),  who 
had  a  family  of  daughters,  the  second  of  whom  was  ex- 
ceedingly  pretty.  One  day  this  girl,  of  some  eighteen 
years  or  so,  came  to  my  mother,  who  was  always  a  special 
friend  of  all  the  young  girls,  with  a  long,  eulogistic  defence 
of  the  yicar.  She  was  describing  at  much  length  the  de- 
light of  the  assurances  of  grace  which  he  had  given  her, 
when  my  mother,  suddenly  looking  her  straight  in  the  eyes, 
said,  "Did  he  kiss  you,  Carrie?" 

"  Yes,  Mrs.  Trollope.  He  did  giye  me  the  kiss  of  peace. 
I  am  sure  there  was  no  harm  in  that  !" 

"  None  at  all,  Carrie  !  For  I  am  sure  you  meant  none !" 
returned  my  mother.  "  Honi  soil  qui  mal  y  pense!  But 
remember,  Carrie,  that  the  kiss  of  peace  is  apt  to  change 
its  quality  if  repeated  !" 


CHAPTER  V. 

AT     WINCHESTER. 

Meanwhile  the  fateful  year  1820,  when  I  was  to  be 
translated  from  the  world  of  Harrow,  and  know  nothing 
riiore  of  its  friendships,  quarrels,  and  politics,  was  at  hand. 
At  the  election  of  July  in  that  year  was  to  begin  my 
"Winchester  life.  I  certainly  looked  forward  to  it  with  a 
feeling  of  awe  approaching  terror,  yet  not  untempered  by 
a  sense  of  increased  dignity  and  the  somewhat  self-com- 
placent feeling  of  one  destined  by  fate  to  meet  great  and 
perilous  adventures,  and  acquire  large  stores  of  experi- 
ence. 

The  sadness  of  dejiarture  was  tempered  also,  as  I  re- 
member, by  the  immediate  delight  of  a  journey  to  be 
performed.  Certainly  it  was  not  the  unmixed  delight 
with  whicli  Rousseau  contemplated  his  voyage  d  faire  et 
I\iris  au  bout.  Something  vei'y  different  lay  at  the  end 
of  my  voyage.  Nevertheless,  so  intense  was  my  delight 
in  "  the  road  "  at  that  time  (and  to  a  great  degree  ever 
since),  that  the  sixty  miles'  journey  to  be  performed  was  a 
great  alleviation. 

The  exi)cdition  was  to  be  made  with  my  father  in  his 
gig.  A  horse  was  to  be  sent  on  to  Guildford,  and  by  dint 
of  starting  at  a  very  early  hour,  and  there  changing  horses, 
the  distance  was  to  be  performed  in  one  day.  We  were 
to  travel,  not  by  the  more  generally  used  coach  road  by 
Hounslow  and  Bagshot,  but  over  the  district  called  the 
Hog's  Back  from  Guildford  to  Farnham — chiefly,  as  I  re- 
member, for  the  sake  of  showing  me  that  beautiful  bit  of 
country.  For  to  my  father  beautiful  scenery  was  as  great 
a  deliglit  as  it  has  alwaj's  been  to  myself. 

At  Farnham  there  was  time,  while  the  horse  was  being 
baited  at  The  Bush,  for  us,  after  snatching  a  morsel  of 
cold  meat,  to  visit  hurriedly  the  park  and  residence  of  the 


AT  WINCHESTER.  67 

Bishop  of  Winchester.  I,  very  contentedly  trotting  by 
the  side  of  my  father's  long  strides,  was  much  impressed 
by  the  beauty  of  the  park.  But,  as  I  remember,  my  mind 
was  very  much  exercised  by  the  fact,  then  first  learned, 
that  the  bishop's  diocese  extertded  all  the  way  to  London. 
And  I  think  that  it  seemed  somehow  to  my  child's  mind 
that  the  dignity  of  my  position  as  one  of  William  of 
Wykeham's  scholars  was  enhanced  by  the  enormous  ex- 
tent of  the  diocese  of  his  successoi-. 

We  reached  Winchester  late  in  the  evening  of  the  day 
before  the  election,  putting  up,  not  at  The  George,  or  at 
The  White  Hart,  as  most  people  would  have  done,  but  at 
the  Fleur  de  Lys,  pronounced  "  Flower  de  Luce,"  a  very 
ancient,  but  then  third-rate  hostelry,  Avhich  my  father  pre- 
ferred, partly  ])robabl3^  because  ho  tliought  the  charges 
micfht  be  less  there,  but  mainly  because  it  is  situated  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  college,  and  he  had  known  and  used 
it  of  old.  We  spent  the  evening  at  the  house  of  Dr.  Ga- 
bell,  the  head-master,  an  old  friend  of  my  father's,  where 
liis  eldest  daughter,  an  intimate  friend  of  my  mother's, 
who  had  often  been  a  visitor  in  Keppel  Street,  made  much 
of  me. 

And  the  next  day  I  became  a  AVykchamist  !  And  the 
manner  of  so  becoming  was  in  this  wise.  The  real  serious 
business  of  the  six  electors — three  sent  from  New  College, 
and  three  belonging  to  Winchester,  as  has  been  set  forth 
on  a  previous  page — consisted  in  the  examination  of  those 
scholars,  who,  standing  at  the  top  of  the  school,  were  in 
tliat  year  candidates  for  New  College.  All  the  eighteen 
"prefects,"  who  formed  the  higiiest  class  in  the  school, 
were  examined  ;  but  the  most  serious  part  of  the  business 
was  the  examination  f>f  the  iirst  half-dozen  or  so,  who 
were  probably  sujterannuated  at  the  age  of  eighteen  that 
year,  and  who  might  have  a  fair  chance  of  finding  a  va- 
cancy at  New  College  (if  there  were  not  one  at  that  present 
moment)  in  the  course  of  the  ensuing  twelve  months. 
And  this  was  a  very  fateful  and  serious  examinal  ion,  for 
the  examiners  in  "the  election  chamber"  would,  if  the  ex- 
amination diselosecl  due  cause,  change  the  order  of  the 
roll  as  if  eame  up  to  lliem,  placing  a  bov  who  h.-id  distin- 


68  WHAT   I   KEMEMBER. 

guished  himself,  before  another,  Avho  had  not  done  so. 
And  as  the  roll  thus  settled  was  the  order  in  which  vacan- 
cies at  New  College  were  taken,  the  work  in  "the  cham- 
ber" was  of  lifelong  importance  to  the  subjects  of  it. 

Very  different  was  the  "Election  "  of  the  children,  who 
were  to  go  into  Winchester.  Duly  instructed  as  to  the 
part  we  were  to  i)lay,  we  went  marvelling  up  the  ancient 
stone  corkscrew  stair  to  the  mysterious  chamber  situated 
over  the  "middle  gate,"  i.e.,  the  gateway  between  the 
outer  court  and  the  second  quadrangle  where  the  chapel, 
the  hall,  and  the  chambers  are.  The  "  election  chamber  " 
always  maintained  a  certain  character  of  mystery  to  us, 
because  it  was  never  opened  or  used  save  on  the  great  oc- 
casion of  the  annual  election.  In  that  chamber  we  found 
the  six  solemn  electors  in  their  gOAvns  waiting  for  us; 
especially  the  Bishop  of  Hereford,  who  was  then  Warden 
of 'Winchester  College,  an  aged  man  who,  with  his  peculiar 
wig  and  gown,  was  an  object  of  awe.  No  bishop  had  in 
those  days  dreamed  as  yet  of  discarding  the  episcopal 
wig. 

And  then  the  examination  began  as  follows:  "Well, 
boy,  can  you  sing  ?"  "  Yes,  sir."  "  Let  us  hear  you." 
'"AH  people  that  on  earth  do  dwell,' "  responded  the 
neophyte  —  duly  instructed  previously  in  his  part  of  the 
proceeding — without  attempting  in  the  smallest  degree  to 
modify  in  any  way  his  ordinary  speech.  "Very  well, 
boy.  That  will  do!"  returned  the  examiner.  The  exam- 
ination was  over,  and  j^ou  were  a  member  of  William  of 
Wykeham's  college,  Sancta  3Iarioi  de  Winton  proj^e 
Winton.  "  Prope  Winton,"  observed,  for  the  college  is 
situated  outside  the  ancient  city  walls. 

The  explanation  of  this  survival  of  the  simulacrum  of 
an  examination  is  that  the  ancient  statutes  require  that 
candidates  for  admission  as  scholars  must  be  competently 
instructed  in  pdano  cantu  —  in  plain  chant;  the  intention 
of  the  founder  being  that  all  his  scholars  should  take  part 
in  the  choral  service  of  the  chapel, 

I  and  my  fellow-novices  thus  admitted  as  scholars  in 
that  July  of  1820  were  not  about  to  join  the  school  im- 
mediately.    We  had  the  six  weeks  holidays  before  us,  the 


AT  WINCHESTER.  69 

election  taking  place  at  the  end  of  the  summer  half-year. 
Election  week  was  the  grand  festival  of  the  Wykeham- 
ical  year.  For  three  days  high  feast  was  held  in  the 
noble  old  hall.  The  "high  table  "  was  spread  on  the  dais, 
and  all  old  Wykehamists  were  welcome  at  it.  The  boys 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  hall  were  regaled  with  mutton- 
pies,  and  "stuckling."  That  was  their  appointed  fare; 
but  in  point  of  fact  they  feasted  on  dishes  or  portions  of 
dishes  sent  down  from  the  abundantly-spread  high  table, 
and  the  pies  were  carried  away  for  the  next  morning's 
breakfast.  I  do  not  think  anybody  ate  much  "  stuckling  " 
beyond  a  mouthful  pro  for  md.  It  was  a  sort  of  flat  pastry 
made  of  chopped  apples  and  currants.  And  the  specialty 
of  it  was  that  the  apples  must  be  that  year's  apples. 
They  used  to  be  sent  up  from  Devonshire  or  Cornwall, 
and  sometimes  were  with  difficulty  obtained.  Then  there 
was  the  singing  of  the  Latin  grace,  with  its  beautiful  re- 
sponses, performed  by  the  chapel  choir  and  as  many  oth- 
ers as  were  capable  of  taking  part  in  it.  The  grace  with 
its  music  has  been  published,  and  I  need  not  occupy  these 
pages  with  a  reprint  of  it.  And  then  in  the  afternoon 
came  the  singing  of  "Domum"  on  the  five  courts  behind 
the  school,  by  the  whole  strength  of  the  company. 

Nine  such  election  weeks  did  I  see,  counting  from  that 
which  made  me  a  Wykeluuuist  in  1S20  to  that  which  saw 
rae  out  a  superannuate  in  1828.  I  did  not  get  a  fellow- 
ship at  New  College,  having  narrowly  missed  it  for  want 
of  a  vacancy  by  one.  I  was  much  mortified  at  the  time, 
but  have  seen  long  since  that  probably  all  was  for  the  best 
for  me.  It  was  a  mere  chance,  as  has  been  shown  at  a 
former  page,  whether  a  boy  at  the  head  or  nearly  at  the 
head  of  the  school  went  to  New  College  or  not. 

The  interesting  event  of  a  vacancy  liaving  occurred  at 
New  College,  wlu'thcr  Ity  death,  marriage,  or  the  acceptance 
of  a  living,  was  aiuionnce<l  by  the  arrival  of  "speedyman" 
at  Winchester  College.  "  S|)eedynh'ui,"  in  conformity  with 
immemorial  usage,  used  to  Ijring  tlie  news  on  foot  from 
Oxford  to  Winchester.  How  well  I  I'emember  the  look 
of  the  man,  as  he  used  to  arrive  with  all  the  apjiearance 
of  having  niadu  a  breathless  journey,  a  spare,  active-look- 


70  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

ing  fellow,  in  brown  cloth  breeches  and  gaiters  covered 
with  dust.  Of  course  letters  telling  the  facts  had  long 
outstripped  "speedyman."  But  Avith  the  charming  and 
reverent  spirit  of  conservatism,  which  in  those  days  ruled 
all  things  at  Winchester,  "  speedyman  "  made  his  jour- 
ney on  foot  all  the  same! 

Of  course  one  of  the  first  matters  in  hand  when  this 
fateful  messenger  arrived  was  to  regale  him  with  college 
beer,  and  right  good  beer  it  was  in  those  days.  In  con- 
nection with  it  may  be  mentioned  the  rather  singular  fact 
that,  whereas  all  other  supplies  from  the  college  buttery 
to  the  boys — the  bread,  the  cheese,  the  butter,  the  meat — 
were  accurately  measured,  the  beer  was  given  absolutely 
ad  libitum.  In  fact,  it  was  not  given  out  at  all,  but  taken. 
Thrice  a  day  the  way  to  the  cellar  was  open,  a  back 
stair  leading  from  the  hall  to  the  superb  old  vaulted  cel- 
lar, with  its  central  pillar  and  arches  springing  from  it  in 
every  direction.  All  around  were  the  hogsheads,  and  the 
proper  tools  for  tapping  one  as  soon  as  another  should  be 
out.  And  to  this  cellar  the  boys  —  or  rather  the  junior 
boys  at  each  mess  —  went  freely  to  draw  as  much  as  they 
chose. 

And  the  beer  thus  freely  supplied  was  our  only  beverage, 
for  not  only  was  tea  or  coffee  not  furnished,  it  was  not 
permitted.  Some  of  the  prefects  (the  eighteen  first  boys 
in  college)  would  have  "  tea-messes,"  provided  out  of  their 
own  pocket-money,  and  served  by  their  "  fags."  But  if, 
as  would  sometimes  happen,  either  of  the  masters  chanced 
to  appear  on  the  scene  before  the  tea-things  could  be  got 
out  of  the  way,  he  used  to  smash  them  all,  using  his  large 
pass-kc}''  for  the  purpose,  and  saying,  "  What  are  all  these 
things,  sir  ?  AViiliam  of  Wykeham  knew  nothing,  I  think, 
of  tea  !" 

We  used  to  breakfast  at  ten,  after  morning  school,  on 
bread-and-butter  and  beer,  having  got  up  at  half-past  five, 
gone  to  chapel  at  half-past  six,  and  into  school  at  half- 
past  seven.  At  a  quarter  to  one  we  again  went  up  into 
hall.  It  was  a  specialty  of  college  phraseology  to  sup- 
press the  definite  article.  We  always  said  "  to  hall,"  "  to 
meads"  (the  playground),  "to  school,"  "to  chambers,"  and 


AT   WINCHESTER.  71 

the  like.  The  visit  to  hall  at  that  lime  was  properly  for 
dinner,  thousrh  it  had  long  ceased  to  be  such.  The  middle- 
of-the-day  "hall"  served  in  my  day  only  for  the  purpose 
of  luncheon  (though  no  such  modern  word  was  ever  used), 
and  only  those  "juniors"  attended  whose  office  it  was  to 
bring  away  the  portions  of  bread-and-cheese  and  "bobs" 
{i.  e.f  huge  jugs)  of  beer  for  consumption  in  the  afternoon. 

Sunday  formed  an  exception  to  this  practice.  "We  all 
went  up  into  "  hall "  in  the  middle  of  the  day  on  Sunday, 
and  dined  on  roast  beef,  the  noontide  dinner  consisting  of 
roast  beef  on  that  day,  boiled  beef  on  Monday,  Tuesday, 
Wednesday,  and  Thursday,  and  baked  plum-pudding  on 
Friday  and  Saturday.  15ut  the  boiled  beef,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  certain  portions  reserved  for  the  next  morning's 
breakfast  of  the  seniors  of  the  messes,  or  companies  into 
which  the  "inferiors"  {i.e.,  non-prefects)  were  divided, 
was  not  eaten,  but  given  away.  During  the  war  Win- 
chester had  been  one  of  the  depots  of  French  prisoners, 
and  the  beef  in  question  was  then  given  to  them.  Wjjcn 
there  were  no  more  Frenchmen  it  was  given  to  twenty- 
four  old  women  who  were  appointed  to  do  the  weeding 
of  the  college  quadrangles.  It  must  be  understood  that 
this  arrangement  was  entirely  spontaneous  on  the  part  of 
the  boys,  though  it  would  have  been  quite  out  of  the 
question  for  any  individual  to  say  that  he,  for  his  part, 
would  cat  his  own  beef.  How  all  this  may  be  now  I  know 
not.  Probably  the  college,  under  the  enlightened  guid- 
ance of  her  majesty's  commissioners,  have  seen  the  pro- 
priety of  provoking  the  youthful  Wykehamists  with  ta- 
ble napkins  and  caper  sauce,  while  the  old  women  go 
without  their  dole  of  beef.  On  the  Friday  and  Saturday 
the  pudding  was  carried  down  out  of  hall  l»y  the  juniors 
for  consumjitinn  during  the  afternoon. 

At  about  a  (juartcr-itast  six,  at  the  conclusion  of  after- 
noon school,  we  went  up  into  hail  for  dinner — originally, 
of  coiirse,  supjx-r.  'I'his  consisted  of  mutton,  roast  or 
V)oilc(l,  every  evening  of  the  year,  u  itli  jiotatoes  an<l  beer. 
]5ut  it  was  such  mutton  as  is  not  to  he  foun<l  in  English 
butchers'  sliops  nowadays,  scientific  breeding  havitig  im- 
proved   it    (nnn   off   the   face  of  the  land.      It   was  small 


72  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Southdown  mutton,  uncrossed  by  any  of  the  coarser, 
rapidly -growing,  and  fat -making  breeds.  And  that  it 
should  be  such  was  insured  by  the  curious  rule  that, 
though  only  a  given  number  of  pounds  of  mutton  were 
required  and  paid  for  to  the  coutractor,  the  daily  supply 
was  always  to  be  one  sheep  and  a  half.  So  that  if  large 
mutton  was  sent  it  was  to  the  loss  of  the  contractor. 

Furthermore  it  was  the  duty  of  the  "prefect  of  tub" 
to  see  that  the  mutton  was  in  all  ways  satisfactory.  The 
"  prefect  of  tub"  was  one  of  the  five  boys  at  the  head  of 
the  school;  another  was  the  "prefect  of  hall;"  a  third 
"  prefect  of  school,"  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  "  prefects 
of  chapel."  These  offices  were  all  positions  of  emolument. 
That  of  the  "  prefect  of  tub  "  was  far  the  most  so,  and  was 
usually  held  by  the  senior  college  "founder,"  or  boy  of 
"  foiindei''s  kin,"  during  his  last  year  before  going  to  New 
College.  The  titles  of  the  other  offices  explain  themselves, 
but  that  of  "  prefect  of  tub  "  requires  some  elucidation. 

In  the  hall,  placed  just  inside  the  screen  which  divided 
the  buttery  hatches  from  the  body  of  the  hall,  there  was 
an  ancient  covered  "  tub."  In  the  course  of  my  eight 
years'  stay  at  Winchester  this  venerable  tub — damnosa 
quid  non  dimimdt  dies? — had  to  be  renewed.  It  was  re- 
placed by  a  much  handsomer  one;  but,  as  I  remember, 
the  change  had  rather  the  effect  on  the  popular  mind  in 
college  of  diminishing  our  confidence  in  the  permanency 
of  human  institutions  generally.  The  original  purpose 
of  this  tub  was  to  receive  fragments  and  remains  of  food, 
together  with  such  portions — "  dispers  "  we  called  them 
— of  the  evening  mutton  supper  as  were  not  duly  claimed 
by  the  destined  recipient  of  them  at  his  place  at  the  table, 
that  they  might  be  given  to  the  poor;  and  the  "prefect 
of  tub  "  was  so  called  because  it  was  part  of  his  office  to 
see  that  tliis  was  duly  done.  It  was  also  his  duty  to  pre- 
side over  the  distribution  of  the  aforesaid  "  dispers  " — not 
quasi  dispars,  as  might  be  supposed  by  those  who  can  ap- 
preciate the  difference  between  a  prime  cut  out  of  a  leg 
of  mutton  and  a  bit  of  the  breast  of  a  sheep,  but  "  dispers  " 
from  dispertio.  Now  the  distribution  in  question  was 
effected    in    this   wise.     The   joints   were  cut  up  in  the 


AT  \VL\ CHESTER.  73 

kitchen  always  accurately  in  the  same  manner.  The  leg 
made  eight  "  dispers,"  the  shoulder  seven,  and  so  on.  The 
"dispers"  thus  prepared  were  put  into  four  immense 
pewter  dishes,  and  these  were  cai'ried  up  into  hall  by  four 
choristers  under  the  superintendence  of  the  "i)refect  of 
tub  "  and  distributed  among  the  fifty-two  "  inferiors  " — 
i.  e.,  non-prefects.  The  eighteen  prefects  dined  at  two 
tables  by  themselves.  Their  joints  Avere  not  cut  into 
"  dispers,"  but  Avere  dressed  by  the  cook  according  to 
their  own  orders,  paid  for  by  themselves  according  to  an 
established  tariff  drawn  with  reference  to  the  extra  ex- 
pense of  the  mode  of  j>reparation  ordered.  The  long,  nar- 
row tables  Avere  six  in  number,  ranged  on  either  side  of 
the  noble  hall,  exactly  as  in  a  monastic  refectory.  The 
dais  was  left  unoccupied,  save  at  election  time,  when  the 
"high  table"  was  spread  there.  At  the  first  two  tables 
on  the  left-hand  side  as  one  entered  the  hall,  the  eighteen 
prefects  dined. 

This  bloated  aristocracy  was  supplied  Avith  plates  to 
eat  their  dinner  from.  The  populace — mere  mutton  con- 
sumere  nati — the  fifty-two  inferiors,  had  only  "  trenchers," 
flat  pieces  of  Avood  about  nine  inches  square.  These  fifty- 
two  "  inferiors  "  were  divided  into  eight  companies,  and  oc- 
cujiied  the  remaining  four  tables.  But  t  is  division  Avas 
so  arranged  that  one  of  the  eight  seniors  of  the  "  inferiors  " 
was  at  the  head  of  each  company,  and  one  of  the  eight 
juniors  at  the  bottom  of  each,  the  Avhole  body  being  sim- 
ilarly distril)uted.  And  each  of  these  companies  occu])ied 
a  different  table  every  day,  the  party  who  sat  at  the  low- 
est table  on  Momlay  occuj)ying  the  highest  on  Tuesday, 
and  80  on.  So  that  Avhen  the  "  prefect  of  tub  "  entered 
the  hall  at  the  head  of  the  jn-ocession  of  four  choristers, 
carrying  the  four  "  gomers  "  (such  Avas  the  phrase)  of  dis- 
pers, he  ])roceeded  first  to  the  table  on  the  opi)osite  side 
of  tlie  hall  to  that  of  the  prefects,  and  saw  that  the  senior 
of  the  mess  occupying  that  tal)le  selected  as  many  of  the 
most  eligiljle  dispers  as  there  Averc  persons  present.  If 
any  junior  Avcre  absent  by  authority  of,  or  on  the  business 
of,  any  prefect,  his  disjter  was  alhnved  to  be  taken  for 
liini.  This  senior  of  tlie  nu-ss.  i(  may  I»e  menlioiiiil  oOitcr, 
4 


74  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

was  called,  for  some  reason  hidden  in  the  obscurity  of 
time,  the  "  candlekeeper."  Assuredly  neither  he  nor  his 
office  had  any  known  connection  with  the  keeping  of 
candles.  Any  dispers  remaining  unclaimed  at  the  end  of 
his  tour  of  the  hall  belonged  to  "the  tub." 

In  return  for  the  performance  of  this  important  office, 
the  "prefect  of  tub  "  was  entitled  to  the  heads,  feet,  and 
all  such  portions  of  the  sheep  as  were  not  comprised  in 
legs,  shoulders,  necks,  loins,  and  breasts,  as  well  as  to  the 
dispers  of  any  individuals  who  might  from  any  cause  be 
absent  from  college.  Of  course  he  did  not  meddle  per- 
sonally with  any  of  these  perquisites,  but  had  a  contract 
with  the  college  manciple,  the  value  of  which  was,  I  be- 
lieve, about  £80  a  year.     Such  was  the  "prefect  of  tub." 

Orderly  conduct  in  hall  generally,  which  did  not  imply 
any  degree  of  violence,  was  maintained  by  the  "  prefect 
of  hall,"  the  dignity  of  whose  office,  though  it  was  by  no 
means  so  profitable  as  that  of  the  "  prefect  of  tub,"  ranked 
above  that  of  all  the  other  "  officers."  No  master  was 
ever  present  in  hall. 

But  the  most  onerous  and  important  duty  of  the  pre- 
fect of  hall  consisted  in  superintending  the  excursion  to 
"  hills," — i.  e.,  to  St.  Catherine's  Hill,  which  took  place 
twice  on  every  holiday,  once  on  every  half -holiday  dur- 
ing the  year,  and  every  evening  during  the  summer 
months.  On  those  occasions  the  "j^refect  of  hall"  had. 
under  his  guidance  and  authority  not  only  William  of 
AVykcham's  seventy  scholars,  but  the  Avhole  of  the  hun- 
dred and  thirty  pupils  of  the  head-master,  who  were  called 
commoners.  The  scholars  marched  first,  two  and  two 
(with  the  exception  of  the  prefects,  who  walked  as  they 
pleased),  and  then  followed  the  commoners.  And  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  prefect  of  hall  to  keep  the  column  in  good 
and  compact  order  until  the  top  of  the  hill  was  reached. 
Then  all  dispersed  to  amuse  themselves  as  they  pleased. 
IJut  the  prefect  of  hall  still  remained  resi^onsible  for  his 
llock  kee}nng  within  bounds. 

St.  Catherine's  II ill  is  a  notably  isolated  down  in  the 
immediate  neigh])orhood  of  Winchester,  and  just  above 
the  charming  little  village  of  St.  Cross.    There  is  a  clump 


AT   WINX'HESTER.  75 

of  firs  on  the  top,  and  the  unusually  well-marked  circum- 
vallation  of  a  Roman  (or  British  ?)  camp  around  the  circle 
of  the  hill.  The  ditch  of  this  circumvallation  formed 
our  "  bounds."  The  straying  beyond  them,  however,  in 
the  direction  of  the  open  downs  avray  from  the  city,  and 
from  St.  Cross,  was  deemed  a  very  venial  offence  by  either 
the  prefect  of  hall  or  the  masters.  But  not  so  in  the 
direction  of  the  town.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  three 
"  juniors  "  in  college — one  of  whom  I  was  during  my  first 
half-year — to  "call  doi/uon.^^  When  the  time  came  for 
returning  to  college,  one  of  those  three  Avalked  over  the 
top  of  the  hill  from  one  side  to  the  other,  while  the  other 
two  went  round  the  circumvallation — each  one  half  of  it 
— calling  perj)ctually  "  Domicm  .  .  .  domum  "  as  loudly  as 
they  could.  All  the  year  round  we  went  to  "morning 
hills  "  before  breakfast,  and  to  afternoon  hills  about  three. 
In  the  summer  we  went,  as  I  have  said,  every  evening 
after  "hall,"  but  not  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  only  to  the 
water-meads  at  the  foot  of  it,  the  object  being  to  bathe  in 
the  Itchen. 

Many  of  the  Winchester  recollections  most  indelibly 
fixed  in  my  memory  are  connected  with  "  hills."  It  seems 
impossible  that  sixty  j-ears  can  have  passed  since  I  stood 
on  the  bank  of  the  circumvallation  facing  towards  Win- 
chester, and  gazed  down  on  the  white  morning  mist  that 
entirely  concealed  the  city  and  valley.  How  many  morn- 
ings in  the  late  autumn  have  I  stood  and  watched  the 
moving,  but  scarcely  moving,  masses  of  billowy  white 
cloud!  And  what  strange  similitudes  and  contrasts  sug- 
gested themselves  to  my  mind  as  I  recently  looked  down 
from  the  lieights  of  ]\Ionte  Gennaro  on  the  Roman  Cam- 
pagna  similarly  cloud  hidden!  Tlie  phenomenon  exhibited 
itself  on  an  infinitely  larger  scale  in  the  latter  case,  but  it 
did  not  suggest  to  me  such  thick-coming  fancies  and  fan- 
tastic imat'inini's  as  the  water-mead-born  mists  of  the 
Itchen! 

There  were  two  special  amusements  connected  with  our 
excursions  to  St.  Catherine's  Hill — badger-baiting  and 
"  mouse-digging,"  the  former  patronizecl  mainly  by  (he 
bigger  fellows,  the  latter  by  their  juniors.     There  was  a 


76  WHAT   I  KEMEMBER. 

man  in  tbc  town,  a  not  very  reputaLle  fellow  I  fancy, 
wlio  liad  constituted  himself  "  badger -keeper"  to  the 
college.  It  was  his  business  to  provide  a  badger  and 
dogs,  and  to  bring  them  to  certain  appointed  trysting- 
])laees  at  "  hill  times"  for  the  sport.  The  places  in  ques- 
tion were  not  within  our  "  bounds,"  but  at  no  great  dis- 
tance in  some  combe  or  chalk-pit  of  the  neighboring 
downis.  Of  course  it  was  not  permitted  by  the  authorities; 
but  I  think  it  might  easily  have  been  prevented  had  any 
attempt  to  do  so  been  made  in  earnest.  It  seems  strange, 
considering  my  eight  years'  residence  in  college,  that  I 
never  once  w^as  jirescnt  at  a  badger-baiting.  I  am  afraid 
that  my  absence  was  not  caused  by  distinct  disapproval 
of  the  cruelty  of  the  sport,  but  simply  by  the  fact  that  my 
favorite  "hill-times  "  occupations  took  me  in  other  direc- 
tions. 

Nor,  probably  for  the  same  reason,  was  I  a  great  mouse- 
digger.  Very  many  of  us  never  went  to  "hills"  unarmed 
with  a  "  m.ousc-diggei-."  This  was  a  sort  of  miniature 
pickaxe,  which  was  used  to  dig  the  field-mice  out  of  their 
holes.  The  skill  and  the  amusement  consisted  in  follow- 
ing the  labyrinthine  windings  of  these,  which  are  exceed- 
ingly numerous  on  the  chalk  downs,  in  such  sort  as  to  cap- 
ture the  inmate  and  her  brood  without  injuring  her,  and 
carry  her  home  in  triumph  to  be  kept  in  cages  provided 
ad  hoc. 

There  was — and  doubtless  is — a  clump  of  firs  on  the 
very  centre  and  summit  of  St.  Catherine's  Hill.  They  are 
very  tall  and  spindly  trees,  with  not  a  branch  until  the  tuft 
at  the  top  is  reached.  And  my  groat  delight  Avhen  I  was 
in  my  first  or  second  year  was  to  climb  these.  Of  course  I 
was  fond  of  doing  what  few,  if  any,  of  my  compeers  could 
do  as  -well.  And  this  was  the  case  as  regarded  "  swarm- 
ing up"  those  tall  and  slippery  stems,  I  could  reach  the 
topmost  top,  and  gloried  much  in  doing  so. 

But  during  my  later  years  the  occupation  of  a  hill  morn- 
ing which  most  commended  itself  to  me  was  ran  grin  "•  as 
widely  as  possible  over  the  neighboring  hills.  Like  the 
fox  in  the  old  song,  I  was  "  off  to  the  downs  O  !"  As  I 
have  said,  the  straying  beyond  bounds  in  this  direction, 


AT   WINCHESTER.  77 

away  from  the  town,  was  considered  a  very  light  offence; 
but  I  was  apt  to  make  it  a  somewliat  more  serious  one  by 
not  getting  back  from  my  rambling,  despite  good  running, 
till  it  was  too  late  to  return  duly  with  the  main  body  to 
college.  It  Avas  very  probable  that  this  might  pass  with- 
out detection,  if  there  were  no  roll-call  on  the  way  back. 
But  it  frequently  happened  that  "Gaffer"  (such  was  Dr. 
Williams's  sobriquet  among  us)  on  his  Avhite  horse  met  ns 
on  our  homeward  march,  and  stopped  the  column,  while 
the  prefect  of  hall  called  names.  As  these  escapades  in 
my  case  occurred  mainly  during  my  last  three  years,  I,  be- 
ing a  prefect  myself,  owed  no  allegiance  to  the  authority 
of  the  prefect  of  hall;  but  the  roll-call  revealing  my  ab- 
sence would  probably  issue  in  my  having  to  learn  by  heart 
one  of  the  epistles  of  Horace.  Prefects  learned  their  "im- 
positions" by  heart,  "inferiors"  wrote  them. 

Every  here  and  there  the  sides  of  these  downs  are 
scored  by  large  chalk-pits.  There  is  a  very  large  one  on 
St.  Catherine's  Hill  on  the  side  looking  towards  St.  Cross; 
and  this  was  a  favorite  scene  of  exploits  in  which  I  may 
boast  myself  ('tis  sixty  years  since  !)  to  have  been  un- 
rivalled. There  was  a  very  steep  and  rugged  path  by 
which  it  was  possible  to  descend  from  the  upper  edge  of 
this  chalk-pit  to  the  bottom  of  it.  And  it  was  a  feat,  in 
which  I  confess  I  took  some  pride,  to  take  a  fellow  on  my 
shoulders  (not  on  my  back),  while  he  had  a  smaller  boy 
on  hin  shoulders,  and  thus  with  two  living  stories  on  my 
slioulders  to  descend  the  diilicult  ]»ath  in  question.  And 
the  boy  in  the  middk' — the  first  story — could  not  be  a  very 
small  one,  for  it  was  requisite  that  lie  also  should  hold  and 
balance  his  burden  thoroughly  well.  I  think  I  could  carry 
one  very  little  boy  down  now  ! 

It  was  the  "  prefect  of  hall "  who  managed  the  whole 
business  of  our  holi<lays — as  they  woidd  be  callcil  else- 
where— which  we  callc*!  "  rfmedit's."  A  "  holiday"  meant 
at  Winchester  a  red-letter  day;  and  was  duly  kept  as  such. 
]Jut  if  no  such  day  occurred  in  the  week,  the  "  ]>refect  of 
hall"  went  on  the  Tuesday  mornint;  tf)  the  head-master 
(Wiccamifc  " /;//'on/*^^^o/'")  and  asked  for  a  "remedy," 
which,  uidess   there  were   any  reason,  such   as  very  bad 


78  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

weather,  or  a  holiday  coming  later  in  the  Aveek,  was  granted 
by  lianding  to  the  prefect  a  ring,  which  remained  in  his 
keejiing  till  the  following  morning.  This  symbol  was  in- 
scribed "  Commendat  rarior  usus.^^ 

But  in  addition  to  these  important  duties  the  "  prefect 
of  hall"  discharged  another,  of  Avhich  J.  must  say  a  few 
words,  Avith  reference  to  the  considerable  amount  of  in- 
terest Avhich  the  outside  world  was  good  enough  to  take 
in  the  subject  a  few  years  ago,  with  all  that  accurate 
knowledge  of  facts,  and  that  discrimination  which  people 
usually  display  when  talking  of  what  they  know  nothing 
about. 

It  was  the  "  prefect  of  hall "  who  ordered  the  infliction 
of  a  "  public  tunding."  The  strange  phrase,  dropped  by 
some  unlucky  chance  into  ears  to  which  it  conveyed  no 
definite  meaning,  seems  to  have  inspired  vague  terrors  of 
the  most  terrific  kind.  Very  much  nonsense  was  talked 
and  printed  at  the  time  I  refer  to.  But  the  following  sim- 
ple and  truthful  statement  of  what  a  public  tunding  was, 
may  enable  those  who  take  an  interest  in  the  matter  to 
form  some  reasonable  opinion  whether  the  infliction  of 
such  punishment  were  a  good  or  a  bad  thing. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  evening  dinner  or  supper, 
whichever  it  may  be  called,  the  "  prefect  of  hall "  sum- 
moned the  boys  to  the  dais  for  the  singing  of  grace. 
Some  dozen  or  so  of  boys,  who  had  the  best  capacities  for 
the  performance,  were  ai)pointed  by  him  for  the  purpose, 
and  the  whole  assembly  stood  around  the  dais,  while  the 
hymn  "  7'e  de  Profundis''''  was  sung.  When  all  were  thus 
assembled,  and  before  the  singers  commenced,  the  culprit 
Avho  had  been  sentenced  to  a  tunding  stepped  out,  pulled 
off  his  gown,  and  received  from  the  hands  of  one  deputed 
by  the  "prefect  of  hall,"  and  armed  with  a  tough,  pliant 
ground-ash  stick,  a  severe  beating.  I  never  had  a  tund- 
ing; but  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  punishment  was  severe, 
though  I  never  heard  of  any  boy  disabled  by  it  from  pur- 
suing his  usual  Avork  or  his  usual  amusements.  It  Avas 
judiciously  ordered  by  the  "prefect  of  hall"  for  offences 
deemed  unbecoming  the  character  of  a  Wykehamist  and 
a  gentleman,  and  only  for  such.     Any  such  petty  larceny 


AT   WIXCHESTER.  79 

exploits  as  the  scholars  at  some  other  "  seats  of  learnhig  " 
are  popularly  said  to  be  not  iinfrequently  guilty  of,  such 
as  robberies  of  orchards  or  poultry-yards  or  the  like,  'svould 
have  inevitably  entailed  a  public  tuuding.  Any  attempt 
"whatsoever  to  appropriate  unduly,  either  by  fraud  or  vio- 
lence, anything  sent  to  another  boy  from  home — any  por- 
tion of  a  "  cargo,"  as  such  despatches  were  called — and  d 
fortiori  any  money  or  money's  value,  would  have  neces- 
sitated a  i)ublic  tunding.  The  infliction  was  rare.  Many 
half-years  passed  without  any  public  tunding  having  been 
administered.  And  my  own  impression  is  that  the  prac- 
tice was  eminently  calculated  to  foster  among  us  a  high 
tone  of  moral  and  gentlemanlike  feeling. 

These  reminiscences  of  the  penal  code  that  Avas  in  vigor 
among  ourselves  are  naturally  connected  with  those  refer- 
ring to  the  subject  of  corporal  punishment  in  its  more  offi- 
cial form. 

On  one  of  the  whitewashed  walls  of  the  hufjc  school- 
room  was  an  inscription  conceived  and  illustrated  as  fol- 
lows: ^^  Aut  disceV  and  there  followed  a  depicted  book 
and  inkstand;  '■'■  Ant  disccdeV  followed  by  a  handsomely 
painted  sword,  as  who  should  say,  "  Go  and  be  a  soldier  !" 
(offering  that  as  an  alternative  for  which  no  learning  v.as 
needed,  after  the  fashion  of  a  day  before  examinations  for 
commissions  were  dreamed  of !) ;  and  then,  lastly,  '■'■Manet 
aors  tertia  ccedi,^''  followed  by  the  portraiture  of  a  rod. 

But  this  rod  is  of  so  special  and  peculiar  a  kind,  and  so 
dissimilar  from  any  such  instrument  as  used  elsewhere, 
that  I  must  try  to  explain  the  nature  of  it  to  my  non- 
Wiccamical  readers.  A  stick  of  some  hard  wood,  beech 
I  think  it  was,  turned  into  a  shape  convenient  to  the  hand, 
about  a  yard  long,  and  with  four  grooves  about  three 
inches  long  and  as  large  as  a  cedar  pencil,  cut  in  the  ex- 
tremity of  it,  formed  the  handle.  Into  these  four  grooves 
were  fitted  four  slender  apple  twigs  about  live  feet  long. 
They  were  sent  up  from  Herefordshire  in  bundles,  cut  and 
])rcpare«I  for  the  jjurpose,  and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  "  ])re- 
fect  <»f  school"  to  jtrovide  them.  These  twiirs,  iitted  info 
the  grooves,  were  iixe<l  by  a  string  wliieh  bound  them 
tightly  to  the  handle,  and  a  rod  was  thus  formed,  the  four- 


80  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

fold  switches  of  which  stood  out  some  foot — or  more  than 
that  towards  tlie  end — from  each  other. 

Tlie  words  "flog-"  or  "flogging,"  it  is  to  be  observed, 
were  never  heard  among  us,  in  tlie  mouth  either  of  the 
masters  or  of  the  boys.  We  were  "  scourged."  And  a 
scourging  was  administered  in  this  wise.  At.  a  certain 
spot  in  the  school — near  the  seat  of  the  ^^  informator'''* 
when  he  was  the  executioner,  and  near  that  of  the  "  hosti- 
arius''''  or  under-master  when  he  had  to  perform — in  front 
of  a  fixed  form,  the  patient  knelt  down.  Two  boys,  any 
who  chanced  to  be  at  hand,  stepped  behind  the  form, 
turned  the  gown  of  a  collegian  or  the  coat-tails  of  a  com- 
moner over  his  shoulders,  and  unbuttoned  his  brace  but- 
tons, leaving  bare  at  the  part  where  the  braces  join  the 
trousers  a  space  equal  to  the  diameter  of  a  crown-jnecc — 
such  was  the  traditional  rule.  And  aiming  at  this  Avith 
more  or  less  exactitude  the  master  inflicted  three  cuts. 
Such  was  a  "  scourging." 

Prefects,  it  may  be  observed,  were  never  scourged. 

The  "best  possible  instructors"  of  this  enlightened  age, 
who  never  treat  of  subjects  the  facts  of  which  they  are  not 
conversant  with,  have  said  much  of  the  "  cruelty  "  and  the 
"  indecency  "  of  such  infliction  of  corporal  punishment,  and 
of  the  moral  degradation  necessarily  entailed  on  the  suf- 
ferers of  it.  As  to  the  cruelty,  it  will  be  readily  under- 
stood from  the  above  description  of  the  rod,  that  it  was 
quite  as  likely  as  not  that  no  one  of  the  four  twigs,  at 
either  of  the  three  cuts,  touched  the  narrow,  bare  part; 
especially  as  the  operator — proceeding  from  one  patient  to 
another  with  the  utmost  possible  despatch,  and  with  his 
eyes  probably  on  the  list  in  his  left  hand  of  the  culprits  to 
be  operated  on — had  little  leisure  or  care  for  aiming.  The 
fact  simply  Avas  that  the  pain  Avas  really  not  Avorth  speak- 
ing of,  and  that  nobody  cared  the  least  about  it. 

The  affair  passed  somcAvhat  in  this  Aviso.  It  is  ten 
o'clock;  the  morning  school  is  over;  and  we  are  all  in  a 
hurry  to  get  out  to  breakfast.  There  are  probably  about 
a  dozen  or  a  score  of  boys  to  be  scourged.  Dr.  Williams, 
as  Avell  beloved  a  master  as  ever  presided  over  any  school 
in  the  Avorld,  has  come  doAvn  from  his  seat,  elevated  three 


AT   WINCHESTER.  81 

steps  above  the  floor  of  the  school,  putting  on  his  great 
cocked  hat  as  he  does  so.  He  steps  to  the  form  where  the 
scourging  is  to  be  done;  the  list  of  those  to  be  scourged, 
with  the  reasons  whj^  is  handed  to  him  by  the  prefect, 
charged  for  the  week  with  this  duty,  together  with  the 
rod.  He  calls  "  Jones  " — swish,  swish,  swish  ! — "  Brown  " 
— swish,  swish, swish  ! — " Robinson  " — swish,  swish,  swish  ! 
as  rapidly  as  it  can  be  done.  Each  operation  takes  per- 
haps twenty  seconds.  Having  got  through  the  list,  he 
flings  the  rod  on  the  ground,  makes  a  demi-volte  so  as  to 
face  the  whole  school,  taking  off  his  hat  as  he  does  so,  rnd 
the  "  prefect  of  school"  who  has  been  waiting  on  the  steps 
of  the  master's  seat,  with  the  prayer-book  open  in  his 
hand,  instantly  reads  the  short  prayer  with  which  the 
school  concludes,  while  those  who  have  been  scourged 
stand  in  the  background  hurriedh'  readjusting  their  brace 
buttons  so  as  not  to  be  behindhand  at  the  buttery  hatch 
for  breakfast.  Of  any  disgrace  attached  to  the  reception 
of  a  scourging,  no  one  had  any  smallest  conception. 

Of  the  cruelty  of  the  infliction  the  reader  may  judge  for 
himself.  Of  the  indecent  talk  about  indecency  he  may 
also  know  from  the  above  accurate  account  what  to  think. 
The  dcrjree  of  "moral  dei^radation"  inflicted  on  the  suffer- 
ers  may  perhaps  be  estimated  by  a  reference  to  the  roll  of 
those  whom  Winchester  has  supplied  to  serve  their  coun- 
try in  Clitu'ch  and  State. 

The  real  and  unanswerable  objection  to  the  infliction  of 
*'cor{)oral  i)Uiiisliment,"  as  it  was  used  in  my  day  at  A\'in- 
chc.stcr,  was  that  it  was  a  mere  form  and  farce.  It  caused 
neither  j)ain  nor  disgrace,  and  assuredly  morally  degraded 
nobody.  I  have  been  scourged  five  times  in  the  day;  not 
because,  as  might  be  supposed,  I  was  so  incorrigible  that 
the  master  found  it  necessary  to  go  on  scourging  nu',  but 
Bim|)ly  because  it  so  chanced.  I  had,  say,  come  into  chapel 
"tarcl^,"'^  i.  €.,  after  the  service  had  commenced;  I  had  omit- 
ted to  s('n<l  in  duly  my  "  vuh/ns ;''"'  I  had  been  "  floored"  in 
my  Iloraee;  I  had  missed  duly  answering  "  sum,"  when  on 
retuiriing  from  "hills"  "(Jatfi'r"  had  met  llie  procession 
on  his  gray  liorse  and  caused  the  "])refect  of  hall"  "to 
call  names,"  the  reason  being  that  I  had  been  far  away 
4* 


82  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

over  the  downs  to  Twyford,  and  had  not  been  able  to  run 
back  in  time;  and  an  unlucky  siinultaneousness  of  these  or 
of  a  dozen  otlicr  such  sins  of  omission  or  commission  had 
occurred,  which  liad  to  be  wiped  off  by  a  scourc^ing  by  the 
^^ /lostua'iiis''^  at  tlie  morning  school,  and  another  by  the 
^^ infonnator f  by  a  third  from  the  former  at  "middle 
school,"  when  the  head-master  did  not  attend;  by  a  fourth 
from  the  ^^ hostiarius''''  at  evening  school,  and  a  fifth  from 
the  '^  informator''''  the  last  thing  before  going  out  to  din- 
ner at  six.  But  this  was  a  rare  toi(r  deforce,  scarcely  like- 
ly to  occur  again.  I  was  rather  proud  of  it,  and  wholly 
unconscious  of  any  "  moral  degradation." 

I  have  spoken  of  the  '^  wforniator''''  putting  on  his 
cocked  hat  when  about  to  commence  his  work  of  scourg- 
ing. I  am  at  a  loss  to  account  for  his  having  worn  this 
very  unacademical  costume.  It  was  a  huge  three-cornered 
cocked  hat  very  much  like  that  of  a  coachman  on  state 
occasions;  and  must,  I  take  it,  have  been  a  survival  from 
about  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second.  It  has,  I  believe, 
been  since  discarded. 

The  mention  above  of  a  "  vulgus  "  requires  some  expla- 
nation. Every  "inferior,"  i.  e.,  non-prefect,  in  the  school 
■was  required  every  night  to  produce  a  copy  of  verses  of 
from  two  to  six  lines  on  a  given  theme;  four  or  six  lines 
for  the  upper  classes,  two  for  the  lowest.  This  was  inde- 
pendent of  a  weekly  "  verse  task  "  of  greater  length,  and 
was  called  a  "  vulgusj'''  I  suppose,  because  everybody — the 
vidffiis — had  to  do  it.  The  prefects  were  exercised  in  the 
same  manner  but  with  a  difference.  Immediately  before 
going  out  from  morning  or  from  evening  school,  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  day's  lesson,  the  "  i?}formator^^  would 
give  a  theme,  and  each  boy  was  expected  then  and  there, 
without  the  assistance  of  pen,  paper,  or  any  book,  to  com- 
pose a  couple,  or  two  couple,  of  lines,  and  give  them  vivd 
voce.  He  got  up,  and  scraped  with  his  foot  to  call  the 
master's  attention  when  he  was  ready;  and  as  not  above 
five  or  ten  minutes  were  available  for  the  business,  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  promptitude  was  requisite.  The 
theory  was  that  these  compositions — "varying"  was  the 
term  in  the  case  of  the  prefects,  as  "vid(/i(s^''  in  that  of 


AT  WIXCHESTER.  83 

the  inferiors — should  be  epigrammatic  in  their  nature,  and 
that  Martial  rather  than  Ovid  should  be  the  model.  Of 
course  but  little  of  an  epigrammatic  nature  was  for  the 
most  part  achieved;  but  great  readiness  was  made  habit- 
ual by  the  practice.  And  sometimes  the  result  was  credit- 
able to  somethint;  more  than  readiness. 

I  am  tempted  to  give  one  instance  of  such  a  "varying." 
It  belonged  to  an  earlier  time  than  mine  —  the  time  Avhen 
Deciis  et  tutamen  was  adopted  as  the  motto  cut  on  the  rim 
of  the  five-shilling  pieces.  The  author  of  the  "varying" 
in  question  had  been  ill  with  fever,  and  his  head  had  been 
shaved,  causinc:  him  to  wear  a  wig.  Dccus  ct  tutamen  was 
the  theme  given.  In  a  minute  or  two  he  vs'as  ready,  stood 
up,  and,  taking  oflE  his  wig,  said,  "Asjncite  hos  crines!  du- 
plicem  servantur  in  usum  !  Hi  mihi  tutamen  nocte''^ — put- 
ting the  wig  on  wrong  side  outwards  ;  "  Dieque  deciis^'' 
reversing  it  as  he  spoke  the  words.  The  memory  of  this 
"varying"  lives  —  or  lived  —  at  Winchester.  But  I  do 
not  think  it  has  ever  been  published,  and  really  it  deserves 
preservation.     I  wish  I  coUld  give  the  author's  name. 

When  at  the  end  of  the  summer  holidavs  in  that  year, 
1820,  I  returned  to  college,  again  brought  down  to  AVin- 
chester  by  my  father  in  his  gig,  I  confess  to  having  felt 
for  some  short  time  a  very  desolate  little  waif.  As  I,  at 
the  time  a  child  barely  out  of  the  nursery,  look  back  upon 
it,  it  seems  to  my  recollection  that  the  strongest  sense  of 
being  slioved  off  from  shore  without  guidance,  hel]),  or 
protection,  arose  from  never  seeing  or  speaking  to  a  female 
Imman  being.  To  be  sure  there  was  at  the  sick-house  the 
presiding"  mother" — Gumbrell  her  name  was,  usually 
])ronounced  "  Grumble  " — but  she  was  not  a  fascinating 
representative  of  the  sex.  An  aged  woman  once  nearly 
six  feet  high,  then  much  bent  by  rheumatism,  rather  grim 
and  somewhat  stern,  she  very  conscientiously  administered 
the  proscribed  "  black-dose  and  calomel  pill  "  to  those  un- 
der her  care  at  the  sick-house.  To  be  there  was  called 
being  "continent;"  to  leave  it  was  "going  abroad"  —  in- 
telligibly enuugh.  Tea  was  provided  there  for  those 
"continent"  instead  of  the  usual  breakfast  of  bread-and- 
butter  and   beer  ;    ;md    I  remember  overhearing  Mother 


84  WUAT   I  REMEMBER. 

Guinbrcll,  oppressed  by  an  unusual  number  of  inmates, 
say,  "  Talk  of  Job,  indeed  !  Job  never  had  to  cut  crusty 
loaves  into  bread-and-butter !" 

I  saw  the  old  woman  die!  I  was  by  chance  in  the  sick- 
house  kitchen — in  after-years,  when  a  prefect — and  "  Dicky 
Gumbrell,"  the  old  Avoman's  husband,  who  had  been  butler 
to  Dean  Ogle,  and  who  by  special  and  exceptional  favor 
was  allowed  to  live  with  his  wife  in  the  sick-house,  was 
reading  to  her  the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  Brethren,  while 
she  was  knitting  a  stocking,  and  sipping  occasionally  from 
a  jug  of  college  beer  which  stood  between  them,  when 
quite  suddenly  hc-  hands  fell  on  to  her  lap  and  her  head  on 
to  her  bosom,  and  she  was  dead  !  w^hile  poor  old  Dicky 
quite  unconsciously  went  on  with  his  reading. 

But  I  mentioned  Mother  Gumbrell  only  to  observe  that 
she,  the  only  i>ctticoated  creature  whom  we  ever  saw  or 
spoke  with,  was  scarcely  calculated  to  supply,  even  to  the 
imagination,  the  feminine  element  which  had  till  then 
made  so  large  a  part  of  the  lives  of  ten-year-old  children 
fresh  from  their  mother's  knee. 

Perhaps  the  most  markedly  distinctive  feature  of  the 
school  lite  was  the  degree  in  which  we  were  unintcrfered 
with  by  any  personal  superintendence.  The  two  masters 
came  into  the  schoolroom  to  hear  the  different  classes  at  the 
hours  which  have  been  mentioned,  also  when  we  were  "in 
cliambers  "  in  the  evening,  either  during  the  hour  of  study 
which  intervened  between  the  six-o'clock  dinner  and  the 
eight-o'clock  prayers  in  tlie  chapel,  or  during  the  subsequent 
hour  between  that  and  nine  o'clock,  when  all  went,  or  ought 
to  have  gone,  to  bed;  and  subsequently  to  tliat,  when  all 
were  supposed  to  be  in  bed  and  asleep,  we  were  at  any  mo- 
ment liable  to  the  sudden,  unannounced  visit  of  the  "  hosti- 
arius''''  or  second  master.  The  visit  was  a  mere  "going 
round."  If  all  was  in  order,  it  passed  in  silence,  and  was  all 
over  in  a  minute.  If  any  tea-things  were  surprised,  they 
were  broken,  as  before  mentioned.  If  beer,  or  traces  of  the 
consumption  of  be  )r,  were  apparent,  that  was  all  right.  The 
supply  of  a  provision  of  that  refreshment  was  recognized,  it 
being  a  part  of  tlie  duty  of  the  bedmakers  to  carry  every 
evening  into  each  of  the  seven  "  chambers  "  a  huge  "  nip- 


AT  WINCOESTEK.  85 

perkin  "  of  beer,  "  to  last,"  as  I  remember  one  of  the  bed- 
makers  telling  me  -when  I  first  went  into  college,  "for  all 
night."  The  supply,  as  far  as  my  recollection  goes,  was 
always  considerably  in  excess  of  the  consumption.  If  all 
was  not  in  order,  "  the  prefect  in  course  " — i.  e.,  the  prefect 
who  in  each  chamber  was  responsible  for  due  order  during 
the  current  week — was  briefly  told  to  speak  with  the  mas- 
ter next  morning.  And  this  comprises  about  all  the  per- 
sonal intercourse  that  took  place  between  us  and  the 
masters. 

Not  that  it  is  to  be  understood  that  any  hour  of  our 
lives  was  left  to  our  own  discretion  as  to  the  employment 
of  it;  but  this  was  attained  by  no  immediate  personal 
superintendence  or  direction.  The  systematized  routine 
was  so  perfect,  and  so  similar  in  its  operation  to  the  move- 
ments of  some  huge,  irresistible  machine,  that  the  disposal 
of  each  one  of  our  hours  seemed  to  be  as  natural,  as  neces- 
sary, and  as  inevitable  as  the  Avaxing  and  waning  of  the 
moon.  And  the  impression  left  on  my  mind  by  eight 
years'  experience  of  such  a  system  is,  that  it  was  pre-emi- 
nently calculated  to  engender  and  foster  habitual  concep- 
tions of  the  paramount  authority  of  loio,  as  distinguished 
from  the  dictates  of  personal  notions  or  caprices;  of  self- 
reliance,  and  of  conscious  responsibility  in  the  individual 
as  forming  a  unit  in  an  organized  whole.  Of  course  the 
eighteen  prefects  were  to  a  much  smaller  degree  coerced 
by  the  iiiachitio,  and  to  a  very  great  degree  active  agents 
in  the  working  of  it.  And  I  was  a  prefect  during  three 
years  of  my  eight  in  college.  But  at  first,  when  a  little 
fellow  of,  say,  ten  years  old  entered  this  new  world,  it 
was  not  without  a  desolate  sensation  of  abandonment, 
which  it  needed  a  month  or  two's  experience  to  get  the 
better  of. 

All  this,  liowcvcr,  was  largely  corrected  and  modified 
by  one  admirable  institution,  which  was  a  cardinal  point 
in  the  Wic-camical  system.  To  every  "inferior"  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  the  pr('fe<'ts  as  a  "tutor."  It  was  the  duty 
of  this  tutor  to  superintend  and  see  to  the  learning  of  his 
lessons  by  the  inferior,  and  the  due  performance  of  his 
written  "  prose  "  and  "  verse  tasks,"  to  protect  him  against 


86  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

all  ill-usage  or  "  bullying,"  and  to  be  in  all  ways  his  prov- 
idence and  friend.  These  appointments  were  made  by 
the  "  mformatory  The  three  or  four  senior  prefects 
had  as  many  as  seven  pupils,  the  junior  prefects  one  or 
two  only;  and  the  tutor  received  from  the  parents  of 
each  pupil,  by  the  hands  of  the  master,  two  guineas 
yearly. 

In  order  rightly  to  understand  the  working  of  all  these 
arrangements,  it  must  be  explained  that  each  individual's 
place  in  "  the  school "  and  his  place  "in  college "  were  two 
entirely  different  things.  The  first  depended  on  his  ac- 
quirements when  he  entered  the  college  and  his  subse- 
quent scholastic  progress.  The  latter  depended  solely  on 
his  seniority  "  in  college."  The  junior  in  college  was  the 
last  boy  whose  nomination  succeeded  in  finding  a  vacancy 
in  any  given  year;  and  he  remained  "junior"  till  the  ad- 
mission of  another  boy  next  year,  when  he  had  one  junior 
below  him,  and  so  on.  Thus  it  might  happen,  and  con- 
stantly did  happen,  that  a  boy's  junior  in  college  might  bo 
much  above  him  in  the  school,  either  from  having  come 
in  at  a  later  age,  or  from  being  a  better-prepared  or  clev- 
erer boy.  -And  all  the  arrangements  of  the  domestic  col- 
lege life,  the  fagging,  etc.,  depended  wholly  on  juniority 
"  in  college,"  and  had  no  reference  to  the  place  held  by 
each  in  the  school.  But  all  this  seniority  and  juniority 
"  in  college  "  ceased  to  operate  in  any  way  as  soon  as  the 
individual  in  question  became  a  prefect.  He  had  then 
equal  authority  over  every  "  inferior,"  whether  such  infe- 
rior were  his  senior  or  junior  in  college. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  ]n-efcct's  authority 
was  frequently  exercised  over  individuals  older,  bigger, 
stronger  than  himself;  and  for  the  due  and  regular  work- 
ing of  this  system  it  was  necessary  that  the  authority  of 
the  prefect  should  be  absolute  and  irresistible.  It  was 
traditionally  Buj)posed  in  college  that  for  an  "inferior"  to 
raise  his  hand  against  a  prefect  would  be  a  case  of  expul- 
sion. Whether  expulsion  would  have  actually  followed,  I 
cannot  say,  for  during  my  eight  years'  residence  in  col- 
lege I  never  remember  such  a  case  to  have  occurred.  I 
have  heard  my  father  and  other  old  Wykehamists  of  his 


AT   WIXGHESTER.  87 

day  declare  that  no  such  absolute  autliority  as  that  of  a 
prefect  at  Winchester  existed  in  England,  save  in  the  case 
of  the  captain  of  a  man-of-war.  It  should  be  observed, 
however,  in  modification  of  this,  that  any  abuse  of  this 
authority  in  the  way  of  bullying  or  cruelty  would  at  once 
have  been  interfered  wdth  by  that  other  prefect,  the  vic- 
tim's tutor.  An  appeal  to  the  master  would  have  been 
about  as  much  thought  of  as  an  appeal  to  Jupiter  or 
Mars. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

AT  WINCHESTER — [contmiicd). 

"When  I  went  into  college  in  1820,  at  ten  years  old,  Dr. 
Gabell  was  the  "  informator,^''  and  Mr.  (afterwards  Dr.) 
Williams  the  "  hostiarius,''''  or  second  master.  When  I 
quitted  it  in  1828,  Dr.  Williams  was  head-master,  and  Mr. 
Ridding  second  master.  I  do  not  know  that  Gabell  Avas 
altogether  an  unpo})ular  man,  but  he  never  inspired  that 
strong  affection  that  his  successor  did.  Ilis  manner  was 
disagreeable.  In  short,  he  was  not  so  completely  a  gen- 
tleman as  Williams  Avas. 

I  am  tempted  to  give  here  an  anecdote  that  was  current- 
ly told  of  Gabell — though  I  cannot  say  that  it  occurred 
within  my  knowledge — because  it  is  at  all  events  a  very 
characteristic  one. 

Some  boy  or  other — he  was,  I  fancy,  a  "  commoner,"  or 
one  of  Dr.  Gabell's  private  pupils — was  guilty  of  some 
small  delinquency  which  had  the  unfortunate  effect  of  es- 
pecially angering  the  Doctor,  who,  in  his  rage,  without  giv- 
ing a  second  thought  to  the  matter,  wrote  off  a  hurried 
letter  to  the  boy's  father,  telling  him  that  if  his  son  con- 
tinued his  present  conduct  he  was  on  the  high-road  to  ruin. 

Unfortunately  the  parent  lived  in  one  of  the  far  north- 
ern counties.  In  extreme  distress  he  at  once  left  home 
and  posted  to  Winchester. 

Rushing,  in  agitation  and  anxiety,  into  Gabell's  study, 
he  gasped  out,  "  What  is  it  ?  Tell  it  me  at  once  !  AVhat 
has  )ny  unhappy  boy  done  ?" 

"  What  boy  ?"  snorted  Gabell.  "  What  do  you  mean  ? 
I  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about!" 

The  father,  much  relieved,  but  more  amazed,  pulls  out 
the  terrible  letter  which  had  summoned  him,  and  puts  it 
before  the  much  crestfallen  '■'■  infortnatoi:" 

"  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it  !"  he  was  compelled  to 


AT  WIXCHESTER.  89 

own.  "  The  boy  is  a  good  boy  enough.  You  had  better 
go  and  talk  to  him  yourself,  and — and  tell  him  not  to  mi.ss 
answering  his  name  again  I"  The  parent's  feelings  and 
his  expression  of  them  may  be  imagined. 

It  used  to  be  said,  I  remember,  that  of  the  two  masters 
of  Winchester,  one  snored  without  sleeping  (Gabell),  and 
the  other  slept  without  snoring.  Gabell  was,  in  truth,  al- 
ways snorting  or  snoring  (so  to  call  it)  ;  but  the  accusa- 
tion against  Williams  of  sleeping  was,  I  think,  justified 
only  by  his  peculiarly  placid  and  quiet  manner.  He  was 
a  remarkably  handsome  man;  and  his  sobriquet,  among 
those  of  the  previous  generation  rather  than  among  us 
boys,  was,  *'  The  Beauty  of  Holiness  " — again  with  refer- 
ence to  the  unruffled  repose  of  his  manner.  We  boys  in- 
variably called  him  "  Gaffer."     Why,  I  know  not. 

Gabell,  I  think,  had  no  nickname;  but  there  was  a  phrase 
among  us,  as  common  as  any  household  word,  which  was 
in  some  degree  characteristic  of  the  man.  Any  conduct 
which  was  supposed  likely  to  turn  out  eventually  to  the 
detriment  of  the  actor  was  called  "spiting  Gabell;"  and 
the  expression  was  continually  used  when  the  speaker  in- 
tended no  more  reference  to  Dr.  Gabell  than  a  man  who 
orders  a  spencer  has  to  the  first  Avearer  of  that  garment. 

Mr.  Ridding  was  not  a  popular  master,  though  I  do  not 
know  that  he  had  any  worse  fault  than  a  bad  manner.  It 
was  a  jaunty,  jerky,  snappish  manner,  totally  devoid  of 
personal  dignity.  It  was  said  that  in  school  he  was  not 
impartial.  IJut  by  the  time  he  became  second  master,  on 
the  retirement  of  Gabell,  I  had  reached  that  part  of  the 
school  which  was  under  the  head-master,  and  have  no  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  the  matter.  I  do  not  think  any  boy 
would  have  gone  to  Ridding  in  any  private  trouble  or 
difficulty.  There  was  not  one  who  would  not  have  gone 
to  Williams  as  to  a  father. 

But  in  my  reminiscences  of  the  college  authorities  I  must 
not  omit  the  first  and  greatest  of  all — the  warden.  Ilun- 
tingford,  Bishoj)  of  Hereford,  Avas  warden  during  the 
whole  of  my  college  career.  He  was  an  aged  man,  and 
somewhat  of  a  valetudinarian.  And  to  the  imagination 
of  us  boys,  who  rarely  saw  bim,  he  assumed  something  of 


90  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

the  mystic,  awe-inspiring  character  of  a  "  veiled  prophet 
of  Khorassan."  The  most  awful  threat  that  could  be  ful- 
minated against  any  boy  was  that  he  should  be  had  up  be- 
fore the  warden.  I  do  not  remember  that  any  boy  ever 
was.  lie  alone  could  expel  a  boy;  and  he  alone  could 
give  leave  out  from  college;  as  was  testified  by  the  ap- 
pearance every  Sunday  of  a  great  folio  sheet,  on  which 
were  inscribed,  in  his  own  peculiar  great  scjuare  charac- 
ters, each  letter  standing  by  itself,  the  names  of  those  who 
had  been  invited  by  friends  to  dine  in  the  town,  and  who 
were  thereby  permitted  to  go  out  from,  I  think,  one  to  five. 
To  go  out  of  the  college  gates  without  that  permission  was 
expulsion.  But  it  was  a  crime  never  committed.  There 
were  traditional  stories  of  scaling  of  walls,  but  I  remember 
no  case  of  the  kind. 

There  was  one  occasion  on  which  every  boy  had  an  in- 
terview with  the  Avardcn — that  of  taking  before  him  the 
"  college  oath,"  which  took  place  when  we  were,  as  I  re- 
member, fourteen.  On  a  certain  da}^  in  every  year  the 
"prefect  of  hall "  made  inquiry  for  all  of  that  age  who  had 
not  taken  the  oath,  and  required  them  to  copy  a  sheet  of 
writing  handed  to  them.  I  cannot  remember  the  Avords  in 
which  the  oath  was  couched,  but  the  main  provisions  of  it 
were  to  the  effect  that  you  would  never  by  word  or  deed 
do  aught  to  injure  the  college  or  its  revenues;  that  you 
would  be  obedient  to  the  authorities;  and  that  you  would 
never  in  any  way  by  word  or  deed  look  down  on  any 
scholar  of  the  college,  the  social  position  of  whose  family 
might  be  inferior  to  your  own.  And  I  remember  that  there 
was  appended  to  the  oath  the  story  of  a  certain  captain 
in  Cromwell's  forces,  who,  when  the  Parliament  troopers 
were  about  to  invade,  and  probably  sack,  the  college,  so 
exercised  his  authority  as  to  prevent  that  misfortune,  be- 
ing influenced  thereto  by  the  remembrance  of  his  college 
oath.  Before  swearing,  Avhich  we  did  with  much  awe,  we 
had  to  read  over  the  oath.  And  I  well  remember  that  if 
a  boy  in  reading  pronounced  the  Avord  "  revenue  "  with 
the  accent  on  the  first  syllable  (as  it  was  already  at  that 
time  the  usual  mode  to  do),  the  warden  invariably  cor- 
rected him  with,  "  Revenue,  boy  !"     It  was,  I  suppose,  an 


AT  WINCHESTER.  91 

exemplification  of  the  dictum  "No  innovation,"  wbich 
(witli  the  "a"  i)ronounced  as  in  "father")  was  said  to  be 
continually  the  rule  of  his  conduct. 

Probably  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  the  Herefordshire 
people  might  have  considered  it  an  innovation  that  Here- 
fordshire candidates  for  orders  should  be  obliged  to  come 
to  be  ordained  in  Winchester  College  Chapel,  as  Avas  the 
case,  instead  of  finding  their  bishop  in  his  own  cathedral 
church  ! 

Bishop  Huntingford  was  a  notable  Grecian,  and  had  pub- 
lished a  rudimentary  book  of  Greek  exercises,  which  was  at 
one  time  largely  used,  I  take  it  he  was  not  in  any  larger 
sense  a  profound  scholar.  But  I  remember  a  story  which 
was  illustrative  of  his  grammatical  accuracy.  The  Dean 
of  Winchester,  Dr.  Rennell,  was  an  enthusiastic  Platonist, 
and  upon  one  occasion,  in  conversation  with  the  warden 
and  others,  quoted  a  passage  from  Plato,  in  which  the  ad- 
jective "ttui'-wv"  occurred.  Upon  which  the  bishop 
promptly  denied  that  any  such  words  were  to  be  found  in 
Plato.  The  controversy  was  said  to  have  been  remitted 
to  the  arbitrament  of  a  wager  of  a  dinner  and  dozen  of 
port,  when  the  warden,  who  in  fact  knew  nothing  of  the 
passage  quoted,  but  knew  that  the  dean  had  said  "Trar-w*'" 
in  the  masculine,  when  the  substantive  with  which  it  was 
made  to  agree  required  the  feminine,  said,  "No!  no! 
TTcirrwi',  Mr.  Dean,  7ra«Twi' !"  and  so  won  his  wager. 

The  warden's  nickname,  borne  among  sundry  genera- 
tions of  Wykehamists,  was  7\tpto  {rvn-w),  as  we  always 
supposed  from  that  Greek  verb  used  as  the  example  in  the 
Greek  grammar,  liut  I  have  heard  from  those  of  an 
earlier  generation  that  it  was  quasi  dicas  "tiptoe,"  from 
the  fact  of  his  father  having  been  a  dancing-master.  The 
former  derivation  seems  to  me  the  more  plausible. 

"Tupto"  very  rarely  came  to  college  chapel,  and  when 
he  ilid  so  in  his  episcopal  wig  and  lawn  sU-evcs  it  was 
felt  by  us  tliat  liis  presence  gave  a  very  marked  addition- 
al Rolemnity  to  the  occasion.  Though  assuredly  far  from 
being  a  model  l)ishop  according  to  the  estimate  of  these 
lafti-r  days,  I  believe  liim  to  have  been  a  very  good  man. 
He  lived  and  died  a  bachelor,  having  at  a  very  early  period 


92  WHAT   I   KEMEMBER. 

of  his  life  undertaken  the  support  of  a  brother's  widow 
and  family,  who  had  been  left  unprovided  for.  And  it 
was  reported  among  Wykehamists  of  an  earlier  genera- 
tion than  mine  tliat  never  was  husband  so  severely  ruled 
by  a  wife  as  tlie  bishop  Avas  by  his  sister-in-law,  "Peace 
to  his  manes,"  as  old  Cramer,  the  pianist,  used  to  say,  al- 
ways pronouncing  it  monosyllabically,  "mains"!  His 
rule  of  Winchester  College  was  a  long  and  prosperous  one; 
and  as  long  as  it  lasted  lie  was  able  to  carry  out  his  fa- 
vorite maxim,  "  No  innovation  !" 

But  when  old  Tupto  went  over  to  the  majority  the  spir- 
it of  innovation,  so  long  repressed,  began  to  exert  itself 
in  many  directions.  I  am  told,  for  instance,  that  it  has 
been  found  too  much  for  young  Wykehamists  of  the  pres- 
ent generation  to  wait  for  their  breakfasts  till  ten  in  the 
morning,  and.  that  the  excursion  to  "  morning  hills  "  be- 
fore breakfast  is  declared  to  be  too  much  for  their  strength. 
Well,  I  wish  it  may  answer,  as  Sterne's  Uncle  Toby  said. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  the  college,  during  the  latter  years 
of  our  century,  can  show  better  bills  of  health  than  it  did 
in  its  earlier  decades. 

The  dormitory  arrangements  are  much  changed,  I  be- 
lieve, and  it  may  be  worth  while  to  record  a  few  reminis- 
cences of  what  they  were  in  my  day. 

The  second  or  inner  quadrangle  of  the  college  buildings 
was  formed  by  the  chapel  and  hall  and  kitchen  on  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  three  by  the  lodgings  of  the  fellows  and 
the  '' /lostiarhcs^^  on  the  first  floor,  and  the  "chambers" 
of  the  scholars  on  the  ground-floor.  These  chambers  were 
seven  in  number.  They  contained,  therefore,  on  an  aver- 
age, ten  beds  each.  But  they  were  by  no  means  equal  in 
size.  The  largest,  "  seventh  "  (for  they  were  all  known 
by  their  numbers),  held  thirteen  beds;  the  smallest,"  fifth," 
only  eight.  A  few  years  before  my  time  that  side  of  the 
quadrangle  under  which  were  situated  the  "  first "  and 
"second"  chambers  was  burned.  And  the  beds  and  oth- 
er arrangements  in  these  two  chambers  Avere  of  a  more 
modern  model.  In  the  other  five  the  old  bedsteads  re- 
mained as  they  had  been  from  time  immemorial.  They 
were  of  solid  oak  of  two  or  three  inches  thickness  in  every 


AT   WINCHESTER.  93 

part,  and  were  black  witli  age.  The  part  which  held  the 
bed  was  a  box  about  six  feet  and  a  half  long  by  throe 
wide,  with  solid  sides  some  six  inches  deep,  and  supported 
on  four  massive  legs.  But  at  the  head,  for  about  eighteen 
inches  or  so,  these  sides  were  raised  to  a  height  of  about 
four  or  five  feet,  and  covered  in.  The  whole  construction 
was  massive,  and  afforded  an  extremely  snug  and  com- 
fortable sleeping-place,  which  was  much  preferred  to  the 
iron  bedsteads  in  the  two  new  chaml)ers.  Older  bones 
might  perhaps  have  found  the  oak  planking  under  the  bed 
somewhat  hard,  but  we  were  entirely  unconscious  of  any 
such  objecti(Mi. 

The  door  in  every  chamber  was  well  screened  from  the 
beds.  There  was  a  huge  fireplace  with  heavy  iron  dogs, 
on  which  we  burned  in  winter  large  fagots*  about  four 
feet  lonir.  Four  of  such  fagots  was  the  allowance  for 
each  evening,  and  it  was  abundantly  sufficient.  It  Avas 
the  duty  of  the  bedmakers,  Avhose  operations  Avere  all  per- 
formed when  we  were  in  school,  to  put  four  fagots  in 
each  chamber,  whicli  we  used  at  our  discretion;  i.  e.,  at 
the  discretion  of  the  prefects  in  the  chamber.  As  the  eigh- 
teen prefects  were  distributed  among  the  seven  chambers, 
there  were  three  prefects  in  each  of  the  larger  and  two  in 
each  of  the  smaller  chambers.  By  the  side  of  each  bed 
was  a  little  desk,  with  a  cupboard  above,  which  was  called 
a  "  toys,"  in  which  each  boy  kept  the  books  he  needed  for 
work  "  in  chambers,"  and  any  other  private  property. 
For  his  clothes  he  had  also  1»y  Iiis  bedside  a  large  chest, 
of  a  make  contemporary  with  the  bedstead,  which  served 
liini  also  for  a  seat  at  the  desk  of  the  "  toys."  In  the  mid- 
dle of  the  chamber  was  a  pillar,  around  which  were  hung 
our  surplices.  Over  the  huge  fireplace  Avas  an  iron  sconce 
fixed  in  the  Avall,  in  Avhich  a  rushlight,  called  by  us  a 
"funeture,"  Avas  burned  .all  night.  Ami  the  "prefect  in 
course"  Avas  responsible  for  its  being  kept  duly  l)urning. 
The  nightly  rounds  of  the  ^^ /lostiariu.t^''  Avere  not  frequent, 
but  he  micrht  come  at  anv  minute  of  anv  ni<'ht.  Suddenly 
his  ]»ass-key  Avould  be  lu-ard  in  the  door  ;  for  it  Avas  the 
rule  that  cv<'rv  eliainber-door  shoiUd  be  kejit  locked  all 
niirlit;  In-  ••anif   in   with  a   lantern  in  liis  hand,  .ind  il"  all 


94  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

was  riglit,  i.  c,  if  the  functure  Avas  duly  burning,  every 
boy  in  liis  bed,  and  his  candle  put  out,  he  merely  looked 
around  and  ])assed  on  to  another  chamber.  If  otherwise, 
the  ''prefect  in  course"  had  an  interview  with  him  on 
the  following  morning.  These  chamber-doors,  which,  as  I 
have  said,  it  Avas  the  rule  to  keep  always  locked  during 
the  night,  Avere  exceedingly  massive,  iron-bound,  and  with 
enormous  locks  and  hinges.  Noav  there  Avas  a  tradition 
in  college  that  a  certain  former  "senior  prefect  in  third" 
{subaudi  chamber)  had  carried  the  door  of  that  chamber 
round  the  quadrangle.  The  Atlas  thus  remembered  Avas 
a  minor  canon  of  the  cathedral  Avhen  I  was  "  senior  prefect 
in  third,"  and  the  tradition  of  his  proAvess  excited  my  em- 
ulation. So  I  had  the  door  in  question  taken  from  its 
hinges  and  laid  upon  my  bent  back,  and  caused  the  door 
of  "  fourth  "  to  be  carefully  placed  on  the  top  of  it,  and  so 
carried  both  doors  round  the  quadrangle,  thus  outdoing 
the  minor  canon  by  a  hundred  per  cent.  In  due  propor- 
tion the  feat  should  surely  have  made  me  in  time  a  canon! 
But  it  has  not  done  so.  I  think,  however,  that  I  might 
challenge  any  one  of  my  schoolfelloAVS  of  the  present  gen- 
eration, Avhose  constitutions  ai'e  cared  for  by  the  early 
breakfasts  Avhich  we  did  not  get,  to  do  likewise;  suppos- 
ing, that  is,  the  old  doors  to  be  still  in  existence,  and  in 
statu  quo.  From  seven  to  eight  Ave  were,  or  ought  to 
have  been,  at  work,  seated  at  our  "toys"  in  chambers. 
And  during  that  hour  no  "  inferior"  could  leave  the  cham- 
ber Avithout  the  permission  of  the  "})rcfect  in  course." 
At  eight  Ave  went  into  chapel — or,  rather,  into  the  ante- 
chapel  only — for  short  praj^ers,  and  after  that  till  nine  avc 
Avere  free  to  do  as  avc  pleased.  Some  would  Avalk  up  and 
doAvn  "  sands,"  as  the  broad  flagstone  pavement  below  the 
chapel  Avas  called. 

Each  prefect  in  the  chamber  had  a  little  table,  at  Avhich 
he  sat  during  the  CA^ening,  and  Avhich  in  the  morning  served 
as  a  washing-stand,  on  Avhich  it  Avas  the  duty  of  the  "jun- 
ior," Avho  Avas  his  "valet,"  to  place  his  basin  and  washing 
things.  But  all  "  inferiors  "  had  to  perform  their  ablu- 
tions at  the  "  conduit  "  in  the  open  quadrangle.  In  severe 
or  Avet  weather  this  Avas  not  Sybaritic  !     But  again  I  say 


AT    WIXCllESTER.  95 

that  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  healthier  collec- 
tion of  boys  than  we  were. 

The  discipline  which  regulated  that  part  of  college  life 
spent  "  in  chambers  "  must  have  been,  I  think,  much  more 
lax  at  a  former  day  than  it  was  in  my  time,  for  I  remem- 
ber to  have  heard  my  father,  who  was  in  college  under 
Dr.  Warton,  say  that  Tom  Warton,  the  head-master's 
brother  (and  the  well-known  author  of  the  "History  of 
Poetry  "),  used  frequently  to  be  with  the  boys  "  in  cham- 
bers "  of  an  evening ;  that  he  would  often  knock  off  a 
companion's  "  verse  task "  for  him,  and  that  the  doctor 
the  next  morning  would  recognize  "  that  rascal  Tom's 
work."  Now  in  my  day  it  would  have  been  altogether 
impossible  and  out  of  the  question  for  any  outsider,  how- 
ever much  an  old  Wykehamist,  and  brother  of  the  mas- 
ter, to  be  with  us  in  chambers. 

There  was  an  anecdote  current,  I  remember,  among 
Wykehamists  of  that  generation,  respecting  "  that  rascal 
Tom,"  to  the  effect  that  he  narrowly  missed  becoming 
head  of  Trinity,  of  which  college  at  Oxford  he  was  a  fel- 
low, under  the  following  circumstances:  There  was  a  cer- 
tain fellow  of  the  college,  whose  name  need  not  here  be 
recorded,  rather  famous  among  his  contemporaries  for  the 
reverse  of  wisdom  or  intelligence.  Upon  one  occasion 
Tom  Warton  was  sitting  in  his  stall  in  chapel  close  to  the 
gentleman  in  question,  who  was  reading  the  Psalms;  and 
when  the  latter  came  to  the  verse,  "  Lord,  thou  knowest 
my  simpleness,"  he  was  so  indiscreet  as  to  mutter,  in  an  al- 
most audible  tone,  "Ay  !  we  all  know  that!''''  But  it  so 
chanced  that,  not  very  long  afterwards,  there  was  an  elec- 
tion for  the  presidentship  of  the  college,  and  Warton,  who 
was  a  very  popular  man,  was  one  of  the  two  candidates. 
The  college,  liuwever,  was  very  closely  divided  between 
them,  ancl  "that  rascal  Tom"  had  to  apply  to  his  "sim- 
ple" colleague  for  his  vote.  "Not  so  simple  as  all  that, 
Mr.  Warton  !"  was  the  reply;  and  the  story  goes  that  the 
historian  of  i)octry  lost  his  election  by  that  one  vote. 

And  this  college  chapel  anecdote  reminds  me  to  say, 
before  concluding  my  Wiccamical  reminiscences,  a  few 
words  about  our  <hapel-goiiig  in  the  olden  finu'.     In  tliis 


96  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

department,  also,  very  much  of  change  has  taken  place, 
doubtless,  here  at  least,  for  the  better. 

But  it  must  bo  remembered  that  any  chancje  of  this  sort 
has  been  contemporaneous  with  change,  at  least  as  strong- 
ly marked  in  the  same  direction,  in  the  general  tone  of 
English  manners,  sentiments,  and  habits.  We  English 
Avere  not  a  devout  people  in  the  days  when  George  the 
Third  Avas  king,  especially  as  regards  all  that  portion  of 
the  world  which  held  aloof  from  evangelicalism  and  dis- 
sent. We  were  not  altogether  Avithout  religious  feeling 
in  college,  but  it  manifested  itself  chiefly  in  the  form 
of  a  pronounced  abhorrence  for  those  two,  as  we  consid- 
ered them,  ungentlemanlike  propensities.  For  about  three 
weeks,  at  Easter  time,  the  lower  classes  in  the  school  read  the 
Greek  Testament  instead  of  the  usual  Greek  authors,  and 
the  upper  classes  read  Lowth's  "  Prailections  on  the  Sacred 
Poetry  of  the  IlebrcAvs,"  a  book  unimpeachable  in  point 
of  Latinity  and  orthodoxy,  for  was  not  the  author  a  Wyke- 
hamist ?  But  I  do  not  remember  aught  else  in  the  way  of 
religious  instruction,  iinless  it  were  found  in  the  assiduity 
of  our  attendances  at  chapel. 

We  Avent  to  chapel  twice  (including  the  short  evening 
prayers  in  the  chapel)  every  day.  On  Fridays  we  went 
three  times,  and  on  Saturdays  also  three  times;  the  ser- 
vice in  the  afternoon  being  choral.  On  Sundays  Ave  AA'ont 
thrice  to  chapel  and  twice  to  the  cathedral;  on  red-letter 
days  thrice  to  chapel,  and  as  often  on  "  Founder's  com- 
memoration" and  "Founder's  obit."  These  latter  ser- 
vices, as  also  those  on  Sundays  and  holidays,  Avere  choral. 
We  had  three  chaplains,  an  organist,  four  vicars  choral, 
and  six  choristers  for  the  service  of  the  chapel.  The  "  chor- 
isters," who  wei'e  mentioned  at  a  former  page  as  carrying 
the  "dispers"  uji  into  hall,  though  so  called,  had  nothing 
to  do  Avith  the  choral  service.  They  Avere  twelve  in  num- 
ber, Avere  fed,  clothed,  and  educated  by  a  master  of  their 
OAvn,  and  discharged  the  duty  of  Avaiting  on  the  scholars 
as  messengers,  etc.,  at  certain  hours. 

Our  three  chaplains  Avere  all  of  them,  also,  minor  can- 
ons of  the  cathedral.  Very  Avorthy,  good  men  they  AA^ere; 
one  of  them  especially  and  exceptionally  exemplary  in  his 


AT   WINCHESTER.  97 

family  relations;  but  their  mode  of  performing  the  service 
in  the  chapel  was  not  what  would  in  these  days  be  consid- 
ered decorous  or  reverential.  Besides  the  chaplaincy  of 
the  college  and  the  minor  canonry  of  the  cathedral,  these 
gentlemen — all  three  of  them,  I  believe — held  small  liv- 
ings in  the  city.  And  the  multiplicity  of  duty  which  had 
thus  to  be  done  rendered  a  degree  of  speed  in  the  perform- 
ance of  the  service  so  often  a  desideratum,  and  sometimes 
an  absolute  necessity,  that  that  became  the  most  marked 
characteristic  of  the  performers.  In  reading,  or,  rather, 
intoning,  the  prayers,  the  habit  was  to  allow  no  time  at 
all  for  the  choir  to  chant  their  "Amen,"  which  had  to 
be  interjected  in  such  sort  that,  when  the  tones  of  it  died 
away,  the  priest  had  already  got  through  two  or  three 
lines  of  the  following  prayer.  One  of  our  chaplains,  Avho 
had  the  well-deserved  character  of  being  the  fastest  of  the 
three,  we  called  the  diver.  For  it  was  his  practice,  in  read- 
ing or  intoning,  to  continue  with  great  rapidity  as  long  as 
his  breath  would  last,  and  then,  while  recovering  it,  to 
proceed  mentally,  Avithout  interruption,  so  that  avc  lost 
sight  (or  hearing)  of  him  at  one  point,  and  when  he  came 
to  the  surface,  i.  e.,  became  audible  again,  he  was  several 
lines  further  down  the  page;  and  this  we  called  "diving." 
It  was  proudly  believed  in  college  that  this  was  the  gen- 
tleman of  whom  the  story  was  first  told  that  he  Avas  ready 
to  give  any  man  to  "Pontius  Pilate"  in  the  Creed,  and 
arrive  at  the  end  before  him.  But,  however  worthy  com- 
petitor he  may  have  been  in  such  a  race,  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that  the  chaplain  of  a  certain  college  in  Oxford 
was  the  original  of  the  story. 

Another  of  our  three  cha|)lains  was  a  great  sportsman. 
It  was  the  practice  that  the  lessons  were  always  read  in 
chapel  by  one  of  the  prefects. 

I  remember,  by-the-bye  (but  this  is  parenthetical),  that 
one  of  our  number  was  unable  to  pronounce  the  letter  "  r," 
and  we  used  to  scheme  that  it  should  full  tolas  lot  to  tell 
us  that  "  Bairabbas  was  a  icobber." 

Now  the  boy  who  read  the  lessons,  sat,  not  in  his  usual 
place,  but  by  tlic  side  of  tlic  chaplain  who  was  performing 
the  service.  And  it  was  the  habit  of  the  reverend  sports- 
5 


98  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

man  I  have  referred  to,  to  intercalate  with  the  verses  of 
the  Psahn  lie  was  reading,  sotto  voce,  anecdotes  of  his  most 
recent  sporting  achievements,  addressed  to  the  j'onth  at 
his  side,  nsing  for  the  purpose  the  interval  during  whicli 
the  choir  recited  the  alternate  verse. 

As  thus,  on  one  twenty-eighth  evening  of  the  month, 
well  remembered  after  some  sixty  years: 

"  Who  smote  great  kings :  for  his  mercy  endureth  f oi-cvcr." 

Then  aside,  in  the  well-known  great  rolling,  mellow  voice 
(I  can  hear  it  now) : 

"  On  Ilurstley  Down  yesterday  I  was  out  with  Jack 
Woodburn  "  (this  was  another  minor  canon  of  the  cathe- 
dral, but  not  one  of  our  chaplains). 
"  Sehon  liing  of  the  Amorites :  for  his  mercy  endureth  forever." 

"My  black  bitch  Juno  put  up  a  covey  almost  at  our 
feet." 

"  And  gave  awny  their  kind  for  an  lieritage :  for  liis  mercy  cnduretli  for- 
ever." 

*'  I  blazed  away  wuth  both  barrels  and  brought  down  a 
brace." 

"  Wlio  remembered  us  when  we  were  in  trouble:  for  his  mercy  enduretli 
forever." 

"But  Jack  fired  too  soon  and  never  touched  a  feather." 
And  so  on. 

Now  there  would  be  no  sort  of  interest  in  recording  that 
we  tmfortunately  chanced  to  have  at  one  time  a  very 
graceless  chaj^lain,  if  such  had  been  the  case,  which  it  was 
not.  The  interest  lies  in  the  fact  that  th^  gentleman  in 
question  was  a  worthy  and  excellent  man  in  all  the  rela- 
tions of  life;  that  he  was  absolutely  innocent  of  intentional 
impropriety;  and  that,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  we  had 
none  of  us  the  faintest  idea  that  we  ought  to  have  been 
shocked  or  scandalized.  Such  was  the  state  of  things  and 
men's  minds  "  sixty  years  since." 

The  brother  of  this  chaplain  was  the  manciple  of  the 
college,  and  was  known  among  lis  as  "  Damme  Hopkins," 
from  the  following  circumstance.  His  manner  was  a  quaint 
luixture  of  pomposity  and  bonhomie,  which  made  a  con- 


AT   WINCHESTER.  99 

versation  vrith  him  a  rather  favorite  amusement  with  some 
of  us.  Now  tlie  manciple  was  a  very  well-to-do  man,  and 
was  rather  fond  of  letting  it  be  known  that  his  independent 
circumstances  made  the  emoluments  of  the  place  he  held 
a  matter  of  no  importance  to  him.  "Indeed,"  he  would 
say,  "I  spoke  to  the  bishop  [the  warden]  a  few  months 
ago  of  resigning,  but  the  bishop  says  to  me,  'Xo,  no, 
damme,  Hopkins,  you  must  keep  the  place.'  "  And  I  have 
no  doubt  that  the  deficiency  of  dramatic  instinct  Avhich 
thus  led  the  worthy  manciple  to  transfer  his  own  phrase- 
ology to  liis  right  reverend  interlocutor  rendered  him  quite 
unconscious  of  any  inaccuracy  in  his  narration. 

We  used  to  go  twice  every  Sunday,  as  I  have  said,  to 
the  cathedral.  But  we  did  not  attend  the  whole  morning 
service.  AVe  timed  our  arrival  there  so  as  to  reach  the 
cathedral  at  the  beginning  of  the  Communion  service,  and 
to  be  present  at  that  and  at  the  sermon  which  followed  it. 
We  had  no  sermons  in  college  chapel,  save  on  certain 
special  occasions,  such  as  5th  of  November,  "  Founder's 
commemoration,"  or  "  Founder's  obit."  On  the  former  of 
these  occasions  a  sermon  used  to  be  preached  with  which 
we  had  become  familiar  by  the  annual  repetition  of  it 
during  a  succession  of  years.  I  wonder  how  many  there 
are  left  who  will  remember  the  words,  "A  letter  was  sent, 
couched  in  the  most  ambiguous  terms,  and  Avho  so  likely 
to  detect  it  as  the  king  himself  ?" 

At  the  cathedral  a  series  of  benches  between  the  pulpit 
;ind  l)ishop's  tlirone  and  the  altar  were  reserved  for  us,  so 
that  the  jireacher  was  immediately  in  front  and  to  the  right 
of  us.  T])e  surplice  was  used  in  tla-  cathedral  i)ulpit  at 
the  morning  service,  the  Geneva  gown  at  that  in  the  after- 
noon. At  the  former  one  of  the  prebendaries  or  the  dean 
was  tlie  preacher,  at  the  latter  a  minor  canon. 

I  remember  that  we  used  to  think  a  good  deal  of  the 
dean's  sermons,  and  always  attended  to  them — a  compli- 
ment which  was  not  often  paid,  to  tlie  best  of  my  recol- 
lection, to  the  other  preachers.  Dean  Ilennell  was  a  man 
of  very  superior  al)ilities,  but  of  great  eccentricity,  mainly 
due  to  extreme  absence  of  mind.  It  used  to  be  told  of 
him  that  unless  Mrs.  Ilennell  took  good  care,  he  was  toler- 


100  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

ably  certain,  when  he  went  up  to  his  room  to  dress  for  a 
dinner-party,  to  go  to  bed.  It  will  be  understood  from 
what  has  been  said  of  the  accommodation  provided  for  us 
in  the  cathedral,  that  in  order  to  face  us,  the  preacher, 
addressing  himself  to  the  body  of  the  congregation  in  the 
choir,  must  have  turned  himself  round  in  the  pulpit.  And 
this  Rcnnell  would  sometimes  do,  when  he  thought  what 
he  was  saying  especially  calculated  for  our  edification.  He 
was,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  a  great  Platonist,  and 
when  he  alluded,  as  he  not  unfrequently  did,  to  some  doc- 
trine or  opinion  of  the  Grecian  philosopher,  he  would  turn 
to  us  and  say,  in  a  sort  of  parenthetical  aside,  "Plato  I 
mean." 

Among  the  stories  that  were  current  of  Rennell  I  re- 
member one  to  the  effect  that  when  upon  one  occasion  he 
was  posting  from  Winchester  to  London  he  stopped  at 
Egham  for  luncheon.  A  huge  round  of  boiled  beef,  nearly 
uncut,  was  placed  upon  the  table.  But  the  dean  found  it 
Avas  as  he  thought,  far  too  much  boiled;  so  without  more 
ado  he  cut  the  huge  mass  into  four  quarters  and  helped 
himself  to  a  morsel  from  the  centre!  The  landlady,  when 
the  mutilated  joint  was  carried  out,  was  exceedingly  in- 
dignant, and  insisted  that  a  guinea  should  be  paid  for  the 
entirety  of  it.  The  dean,  much  against  the  grain,  as  the 
chronicle  goes,  paid  his  guinea,  but  packed  up  the  four 
quarters  of  the  round  and  carried  them  off  with  him. 

Further  indication  of  his  eccentricity  might  be  seen,  as 
I  remember,  in  his  habit  of  wearing  in  the  cathedral  pulpit 
in  cold  weather,  not  a  skull  cap,  but  a  flat  square  of  velvet 
on  his  head,  with  which  occasionally  he  would,  in  the  heat 
of  his  discourse,  wipe  his  face,  then  clap  it  on  his  head 
again. 

The  cathedral,  as  I  have  had  occasion  to  mention  in  a 
former  chapter,  had  been  undergoing  a  very  extensive  res- 
toration, one  operation  in  the  course  of  which  had  been 
the  removal  of  the  organ  from  over  the  screen;  and  the 
question  whether  it  should  be  replaced  there  or  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  north  transept  was  very  earnestly,  and,  it 
was  said,  somewhat  hotly  debated  by  the  chapter.  The 
dean  was  exceedingly  vehement  in  supporting  the  latter 


AT   WIXCHESTER.  101 

course,  -which  was  eventually  adopted,  it  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  by  those  who  see  the  church  as  it  now  is,  with 
entire  judiciousness. 

I  could,  not  without  gratification  to  myself,  chatter 
much  more  about  reminiscences  of  the  years  I  passed  at 
Winchester,  But  I  feel  that  the  only  excuse  for  having 
yielded  to  the  temptation  as  far  as  I  have  must  be  sought 
in  the  illustrations  afforded  by  what  I  have  written  of  the 
large  changes  in  habits,  thoughts,  customs,  feelings  that 
have  been  wrought  in  English  society  and  English  institu- 
tions by  the  lapse  of  some  sixty  years. 

And  now  the  time  had  come  when  I,  having  attained 
the  age  of  eighteen,  was  superannuated  at  the  election  in 
the  July  of  1828.  It  was  not  at  that  time  certain  whether 
I  should  or  should  not  succeed  to  a  fellowship  at  Kew 
College,  for  that  depended  upon  the  number  of  vacancies 
that  might  occur  in  the  year  up  to  the  election  of  1829. 
Eventually  I  missed  it  by,  as  I  remember,  one  only.  One 
more  journey  of  "Speedyman"  before  July,  1829,  an- 
nouncintr  the  marriage  or  the  death  of  a  fellow  of  New 
College,  or  the  acceptance  of  a  college  living  by  one  of 
them,  would  have  made  me  a  fellow  of  New  College.  But 
"  Specdyman  "  did  not  make  his  appearance. 

I  left  Winchester  a  fairly  good  Latin  scholar,  and  well 
grounded — I  do  not  think  I  can  say  more — in  Greek;  and 
very  ignorant  indeed  of  all  else.  According  to  wliat  I 
liear  of  the  present  day,  I  had  no  scholarly  knowledge 
wliutevcr  of  my  own  language.  I  knew  nothing  whatso- 
ever of  Anglo-Saxon,  or  of  mediivval  English.  I  had  never 
— have  never,  I  may  rather  say— had  any  English  gram- 
mar in  my  hand  from  my  cradle  to  tlic  i))-esent  hour. 

It  is  certain,  howevt-r,  that  the  enlarged  requirements 
in  this  department,  to  which  I  have  referred,  have  some- 
how or  otiier  failed  to  Ijanish  from  the  current  literature 
of  the  day  a  vast  number  of  solecisms,  vulgarisms,  and 
grammatical  atrocities  of  all  sorts,  which  defile  the  lan- 
guage to  a  much  greater  degree  than  was  the  case  at  the 
time  of  which  I  have  been  writing,  and  wliic  h  would  have 
been  as  abiiorrent  to  me  when  I  left  Winchester  as  they 
are  now. 


102  WHAT   I   REMEMBER." 

Of  aritlimetic  I  knew  notbinix — I  should  write  "know" 
— and  of  all  that  arithmetic  should  be  the  first  step  to,  d 
fortiori,  still  less.  In  the  art  of  writing  I  received  the 
best  possible  instruction,  for  I  was  licked  by  my  tutor  and 
scourged  by  the  masters  if  my  writing  was  illegible.  Of 
less  indirect  tuition  I  had  none. 

There  was  a  writing-master — one  Mr.  Bovver,  Fungy 
Bower  he  was  called,  why,  I  know  not — who  sat  at  a  cer- 
v  tain  low  desk  in  the  school  during  school-hours.  I  never 
received  from  him,  or  saw  any  one  else  receive  from  him, 
any  instruction  in  writing.  Nor  did  he,  to  the  best  of  my 
knowledge  and  belief,  form  any  part  of  William  of  Wyke- 
ham's  foundation.  The  onh^  purpose  his  presence  in  school 
appeared  to  serve  was  to  mend  pens  and  make  up  the 
weekly  account  of  marks  received  by  each  boy  which  reg- 
ulated his  place  in  the  class. 

The  register  containing  the  account  of  these  marks  was 
called  the  "classicus  paper,"  and  was  kept  in  this  wise: 
All  the  members  of  each  "class" — or  "form"  as  it  is  called 
in  other  schools — continually  changed  j^laces  while  pro- 
ceeding with  the  lesson  before  the  master,  each,  if  able  to 
answer  a  question  which  those  above  him  could  not  an- 
swer, passing  up  above  them.  And  part  of  the  punish- 
ment for  failing  altogether  in  any  lesson,  for  being  as  the 
phrase  was  "  crippled  in  Virgil,"  or  "  crippled  in  Homer," 
■was  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  class.  Thus  the  order  in 
which  the  class  sat  was  continually  changed.  And  the  first 
business  every  morning  was  for  the  two  boys  at  the  head 
of  the  class  to  take  the  "classicus  paper,"  and  mark  "  1." 
against  the  name  of  the  boy  at  the  bottom,  "  2."  against  the 
next,  and  so  on;  so  that  the  mark  assigned  to  him  at  the 
liead  was  equal  to  the  number  in  the  class.  And  this  rec- 
ord of  the  marks  was  handed  every  week  to  Fungy  Bower 
to  be  made  up,  so  as  to  indicate  the  place  in  the  class  held 
by  each  member  of  it.  But  though  this  was  done  weekly, 
the  account  was  carried  on  during  the  whole  half  year,  so 
that  a  boy's  final  place  in  the  class  was  the  accui-ate  result 
of  his  diligence  and  success  during  the  whole  "half." 

Of  course  I  was  a  cricketer — wo  all  were,  and  were,  in- 
deed, obliged  to  be,  -svliether  willingly  or  not,  until  we  be- 


*  AT  WINCHESTER.  103 

came  prefects,  when,  of  course,  those  only  who  loved  the 
game  continncd  to  practise  it.  I  never  was  a  great  crick- 
eter, but  have  been  "long  stop"  quite  often  enough  to 
know  how  great  is  the  nonsense  talked  by  those  of  the 
present  generation  avIio  maintain  that  all  the  elaborate 
precautions  against  being  hurt  which  are  so  abundantly 
taken  by  the  players  of  these  latter  days  are  necessitated 
by  the  greater  force  of  the  boM'ling  as  now  practised.  In 
simple  truth  this  is  all  bosh!  though  I  can  hardly  expect 
a  generation  in  cute  curandd  plus  aequo  operata  to  believe 
a  very  old  batter  and  fielder  when  he  tells  them  so  ! 

My  favorite  game  was  fives.     We  had  a  splendid  fives 
court,  and  the  game  was  played  in  a  manner  altogether 
peculiar  to  Winchester;  now  I  believe — like  so  much  else 
— abandoned.     We  used  a  very  small  ball,  hardly  bigger 
than  a  good-sized  walnut,  and  as  hard  as  if  made  of  wood, 
called  a  "  snack."     And  this  was  driven  against  the  wall 
Ijy  a  bat  of  quite  peculiar  construction.     It  was  made,  I 
think,  of  ash,  and  there  were  only  two  men,  rivals,  who 
could  make  it.     It  was  about   a  yard  long,  the  handle 
round,  and  somewhat  less  than  an  inch  in  diameter.     It 
then  became  gradually  thinner  and  wider,  till  at  about  the 
distance  of  six  inches  from  the  extremity  it  was  perhaps 
an  inch  and  a  half  wide,  and  not  thicker  than  half  a  crown. 
Then  it  expanded  and  thickened  again  into  a  head  some- 
what of  the  shape  of  an  ace  of  spades,  some  three  inches 
across  and  half  an  inch  thick.     The  thin  part  was  kept 
continually  well  oiled — in  such  sort  that  it  became  so  elas- 
tic that  the  heavy  head  might  almost  be  doubled  back  so 
as  to  touch  the  part  nearer  the  hand.     It  will  be  under- 
stood both  that  the  diftlculty  of  striking  a  l)Ounding  ball 
with  this  instrument  was  considerable,  and  that   the  mo- 
mentinn  imparted  to  the  small  hard  ball  by  the  blow  was 
very  great  indeed.     It  is  true  that  accidents  occasionally, 
though  very  rarely,  hajtpened  from  a  misdirected  blow. 
But  it  does  not  seem  necessary  that  the  old  bat  should  be 
abandoned,  for  our  judicious  grandsons  might  play  with 
great  c<»nif<ut  and  safety  in  helmets  ! 

Of  course  I,  like  most  of  my  contemporaries,  left  Win- 
chester— and  indeed  subsequently  left  Oxford  —  as  igno- 


104  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

rant  of  any  modern  language,  save  English,  as  of  Chinese! 
And  as  for  music — thou2:h  Oxford  and  Cambridere  are  the 
ou\y  universities  in  Euro2")e  whicli  give  degrees  in  music — 
it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that,  with  very  rare 
exceptions,  to  have  taught  an  undergraduate,  or  a  boy  at 
a  public  school,  music,  would  have  been  thought  much  on 
a  par  with  teaching  him  to  hem  a  pocket-handkerchief. 
And  here  the  present  generation  has  the  pull  to  a  degree 
which  it  perhaps  hardly  sufficiently  recognizes  ! 

It  was  during  my  last  year  at  Winchester  that  I  made 
my  first  attempt  at  authorship.  Old  Robbins,  the  gray- 
headed  bookseller  of  College  Street,  who  had  been  the 
college  bookseller  for  many  years,  had  recently  taken  a 
younger  partner  of  the  name  of  Wheeler,  and  this  gentle- 
man established  a  monthly  magazine,  called  the  Hamp- 
shire and  West  of  England  Magazine,  to  which  I  contrib- 
uted three  or  four  articles  on  matters  Wiccamical.  I  have 
the  volume  before  me  now — perhaps  the  only  extant  copy 
of  that  long  -  since  -  forgotten  publication.  The  Rev.  E. 
Poulter,  one  of  the  prebendaries  of  Winchester,  who  had 
a  somewhat  wider  than  local  reputation  as  a  wit  in  those 
days,  was  the  anonymous  contributor  of  a  jDoetical  pro- 
logue of  such  unconscionable  proportions  that  poor  Wheeler 
was  sadly  puzzled  what  to  do  with  it.  It  was  impossible 
to  refuse  or  neglect  a  reverend  prebendary's  contribution, 
besides  that  the  verses,  often  doggerel,  had  some  good  fun 
in  them.  So  they  were  all  printed  by  instalments  in  suc- 
cessive numbers,  despite  the  title  of  prologue  which  their 
author  gives  them. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

VISIT     TO     AMERICA. 

I  CAME  back  from  Winchester  for  the  last  time  after  the 
election  of  1828,  to  find  a  great  change  at  home.  My 
father,  pressed  more  and  more  by  pecuniary  diflieiiltics, 
had  quitted  Harrow,  and  established  himself  at  Harrow 
Weald,  a  liamlet  of  the  large  parish  in  the  direction  of 
Pinner,  He  had  not  given  up  his  farm  at  Harrow.  He 
would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  do  so,  for  it  involved  an 
annual  loss  undeviatingly;  but  that  he  could  not  do,  for 
his  lease  tied  him  to  the  stake.  But  he  took  another  farm 
at  Harrow  Weald,  on  which  there  was  an  old  farmhouse, 
which  had  once  been  a  very  good  one,  and,  living  there, 
carried  on  both  farms.  How  far  this  speculation  was  a 
wise  one  I  have  no  means  of  judging.  Doubtless  he  took 
the  Harrow  Weald  farm  upon  very  largely  more  advan- 
tageous terms  than  those  Avhich  he  had  accepted  from 
Lord  North  wick  for  the  farm  at  Harrow;  but  having  been 
absent  all  the  time  at  Winchestei*,  I  knew  so  little  about 
the  matter  that  I  do  not  now  know  even  who  his  Harrow 
Weald  landlord  was.  Possibly  I  did  know,  but  have  for- 
gotten. But  I  think  I  remember  to  have  heard  my  father 
Bay  that  the  Harrov/  Weald  farm  did  in  some  degree  alle- 
viate the  loss  sustained  by  the  larger  farm  at  Harrow,  and 
that,  could  he  have  got  rid  of  the  latter,  the  Harrow 
Weald  farm  might  have  j^aid  its  way.  The  excellent 
house  he  had  built  at  Harrow  was,  in  the  meantime,  let  to 
Mr.  Cunningham,  the  vicar. 

The  change  from  it  to  the  old  farmhouse  at  Harrow 
Weald,  as  a  home,  was  not  a  jdeasant  one  ;  but  a  very 
far  worse  and  mure  important  change  awaited  my  home 
coming,  in  the  absence  of  my  mother.  She  had  gone  to 
America. 

Where,  or  under  what  circumstances,  my  parents  liad 
5* 


106  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

first  become  acquainted  with  General  La  Fayette  I  do  not 
know.  I  myself  never  saw  Lira;  but  I  know  that  it  was 
during  a  visit  to  La  Grange,  bis  estate  in  France,  that  my 
mother  first  met  Miss  Frances  Writxht,  one  of  two  sisters, 
his  -wards.  I  believe  she  became  acquainted  with  Camilla 
"Wright,  the  sister,  at  the  same  time. 

It  is  odd,  considering  tlie  very  close  intimacy  that  took 
place  between  my  mother  and  Frances  Wright,  that  I 
never  knew  anything  of  the  parentage  and  family  of  these 
ladies,  or  how  they  came  to  be  wards  of  General  La  Fay- 
ette. But  with  Miss  Frances  Wright  I  did  become  sub- 
sequently well  acquainted.  She  was  in  many  respects  a 
very  remarkable  personage.  She  was  very  handsome  in  a 
large  and  almost  masculine  st3'Ic  of  beauty,  with  a  most 
commanding  presence,  a  superb  figure,  and  stature  fully 
masculine.  Her  features  both  in  form  and  expression 
were  really  noble.  There  exists — still  findable,  I  suppose, 
in  some  London  fonds  de  magazin — a  large  lithographed 
portrait  of  her.  She  is  represented  standing,  with  her 
hand  on  the  neck  of  a  gray  horse  (the  same  old  gig  horse 
that  had  drawn  my  parents  and  myself  over  so  many  miles 
of  Devonshire,  Somersetshire,  and  Monmouthshire  roads 
and  cross  roads — not  that  which  so  nearly  made  an  end  of 
us  near  Lynmouth,  but  his  companion),  and,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  in  Turkish  trousers. 

But  these  particulars  of  her  bodily  form  and  present- 
ment constituted  the  least  remarkable  specialties  of  her 
individuality.  She  was  unquestionably  a  very  clever  wom- 
an. She  wrote  a  slender  octavo  volume,  entitled  "A  Few 
Days  in  Athens,"  which  Avas  published  by  Longman.  It 
was  little  more  than  a  hrocJuire,  and  it  is  many  years  since 
I  have  Been  it,  but  the  impression  that  it  was  very  clever 
abides  in  my  mind.  I  remember  the  fact  that  the  whole 
edition  was  sold.  And  the  mention  of  this  book  reminds 
me  of  a  circumstance  that  seems  to  show  that  my  parents 
must  have  become  to  a  considerable  degree  intimate  with 
these  wards  of  General  La  Fayette  at  some  period  preced- 
ing the  visit  to  La  Grange,  which  exercised  in  the  sequel 
so  large  an  influence  over  my  own,  and  my  mother's,  and 
brothers'  future.     This  circumstance  is  that  I  recollect  my 


VISIT   TO   AMERICA.  107 

father  to  have  been  in  communication  with  the  Longmans 
on  behalf  of  Miss  Wright  in  respect  to  her  work. 

Be  this  how  it  may,  at  the  time  of  that  visit  to  La 
Grange  spoken  of  above,  Miss  Wright's  thoughts  and 
aspirations  were  directed  with  a  persistent  and  indomita- 
ble enthusiasm,  which  made  the  ground-work  of  her  char- 
acter, to  doing  something  for  the  improvement  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  slave  populations  in  the  southern  states  of 
the  great  transatlantic  republic.  Both  Frances  and  Ca- 
milla Wright  were  ladies  of  considerable  fortune ;  and  I 
believe  that  General  La  Fayette  wished  much  to  induce 
his  ward  Frances  not  to  employ  her  means  in  the  scheme 
she  was  now  bent  on.  But  she  was  of  age — I  fancy  some 
six  or  seven  years  more  than  that — and  he  had  no  author- 
ity to  interfere  with  her  purpose,  with  which  besides, 
otherwise  than  as  likely  to  be  pecuniarily  disastrous  to 
her,  he  entirely  sympathized. 

Her  purpose  was  to  purchase  a  property  in  the  valley 
of  the  Mississip})i — in  Alabama  1  think  it  was — with  the 
slaves  upon  it,  to  free  them  all  immediately,  and  to  culti- 
vate the  estate  by  their  free  labor,  living  there  with  them 
in  a  sort  of  coramunit}',  the  principles  and  plan  of  which 
were,  I  fancy,  very  largely  based  upon  the  ideas  and 
schemes  of  Mr.  Owen  of  Lanark.  His  son,  Robert  Dale 
Owen,  subsequently  well  known  in  Europe  as  th<3  author 
of  sundry  works  on  spiritualism  and  ])olitical  speculations, 
and  as  United  States  Consul  at  Naples  and  perhaps  other 
cities,  was  a  lifelong  friend  of  Miss  Wright's. 

Now,  my  jtarents  had  taken  with  them  to  La  Grange 
my  next  brother,  Henry,  who  has  been  mentioned  as  the 
companion  of  my  early  London  rambles,  and  avIio  was 
then  rajtidly  approaching  manhood  without  having  found 
for  himself,  or  having  had  found  for  him,  any  clear  pros- 
pect of  earning  the  livelihood  which  it  was  clearly  enough 
necessary  that  he  should  earn  in  some  way;  and  Miss 
Wright  jiroposed  to  my  mother  to  bring  him  to  America 
to  join  ill  her  projected  establishment  and  experiment  at 
"New  irarmony" — such  I  liclievc  to  have  been  the  name 
which  ^liss  \V right  gave  to  lur  property.  The  original 
name,  I  think,  was  Nashobn,  but  my  knowledge  of  any  of 


108  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

these  matters  is  very  imperfect.  I  know  that  the  whole 
scheme  ended  in  complete  disappointment  to  all  con- 
cerned, and  entire  failure.  To  Miss  Wright  it  involved 
very  considerable  pecuniary  loss,  which,  as  I  learned  sub- 
sequently from  my  motlier,  she  bore  with  the  utmost  for- 
titude and  cheerfulness,  but  without  any  great  access  of 
wisdom  as  regarded  her  benevolent  schemes  for  the  politi- 
cal and  economical  improvement  of  human,  and  especially 
black,  society.  I  never  saw  her  again;  but  remember  to 
have  heard  of  her  marrying  a  French  teacher  of  languages 
at  the  close  of  a  course  of  lectures  given  by  her  against 
the  institution  of  matrimony.  All  that  I  heard  from  my 
mother  and  my  brother  of  their  connection  Avith  Miss 
Wright,  of  her  administration  of  affairs  at  New  Harmony, 
and  her  conduct  when  her  experiment  issued  in  failure  and 
disappointment,  left  with  me  the  imi)ression  of  her  genu- 
inely high-minded  enthusiasm,  her  unselfishness,  bravery, 
and  generosity,  but,  at  the  same  time,  of  her  deficiency  in 
the  qualities  which  can  alone  make  departure  from  the 
world's  beaten  tracks — mill-horse  tracks  though  they  be — 
either  wise,  profitable,  or  safe.  She  had  a  fine  and  large 
intelligence,  but  not  fine  or  large  enough  for  going  quite 
unpiloted  across  country. 

\Vhether  my  mother  resided  any  time  at  Nashoba  I  am 
not  sure,  but  I  think  not.  At  all  events,  very  shortly 
after  her  arrival  in  America  she  established  herself  at 
Cincinnati.  And  when  it  became  evident  that  there  was 
no  prospect  of  permanent  work  for  my  brother  in  the 
business  of  regenerating  the  negroes,  it  was  determined — 
by  the  advice  of  what  Cincinnati  friends  I  know  not — 
that  he  should  join  my  mother  there,  and  undertake  the 
establishment  and  conduct  of  an  institution  which,  as  far 
as  I  was  able  to  understand  the  plan,  was  to  combine  the 
specialties  of  an  athenaeum,  a  lecture  hall,  and  a  bazaar! 
And  it  was  when  this  enterprise  had  been  decided  upon, 
but  before  any  steps  had  been  taken  for  the  realizing  of 
it,  that  I  accompanied  my  father  on  a  visit  to  America. 

When  I  returned  from  Winchester,  in  July,  there  were 
still  many  months  before  me  of  uncertainty  whether  I 
might  get  a  vacancy  at  New  College  or  not,  and  my  fa- 


TISIT  TO  AMERICA.  109 

tlier,  having  determined  on  going  for  a  short  visit  to  Cin- 
cinnati, proposed  to  take  me  with  him.  After  what  I  have 
written  in  a  previous  chapter  of  my  early  tastes  and  pro- 
clivities, I  need  hardly  say  that  the  prospect  of  this  travel 
was  in  the  highest  decree  delightful  to  me.  I  am  afraid 
that,  at  the  time,  any  call  to  New  College,  which  should 
have  had  the  effect  of  preventing  it,  would  have  been  to 
me  a  very  unwelcome  one.  Our  departure  was  fixed  for 
September,  and  the  intervening  time  was  spent  by  me  in 
preparations  for  the  great  adventure,  very  much  such  as 
Livingstone  may  be  supposed  to  have  made  on  quitting 
Enirland  for  the  "dark  continent." 

I  was,  as  it  seems  to  me  now,  still  a  very  boyish  bo}^,  all 
ex-Wiccamical  prefect  as  I  was,  and,  I  cannot  help  think- 
ing, younger  and  more  childish  than  the  youngsters  of 
equal  age  of  the  present  generation. 

The  voyage,  however,  really  was  a  bigger  affair  in  those 
days  than  it  has  become  in  these  times,  for  it  was  before 
the  iron  horse  had  been  trained  to  cross  the  Atlantic. 
And  my  father  made  it  a  very  much  more  serious  business 
still  by  engaging  for  us  berths  in  the  steerage  of  a  passen- 
ger shij).  I  hardly  think  that  he  would  have  done  so  had 
he  been  at  all  aware  of  what  he  was  undertaking.  It  is 
true  that  he  was  undoubtedly  hard  pressed  for  money, 
though  I  have  not  now,  and  had  not  then,  any  such  knowl- 
edge of  his  affairs  as  to  enable  me  to  judge  to  what  degree 
he  was  straitened.  But  there  was  also  about  my  father  a 
sort  of  Sparta!!  contempt  for  comfort,  and  dcterniination 
not  to  expend  money  on  his  own  personal  well-being, 
which  was  a  j)rominent  feature  in  his  character,  and  which, 
I  have  no  doubt,  contributed  to  the  formation  of  his  resolu- 
tion to  make  this  join  iH'V  in  the  least  costly  manner  ])ossible. 

IJiit,  as  I  have  said,  I  think  that  he  hail  Jio  very  clear 
notion  of  what  a  steerage  passage  across  the  Atlantic  im- 
plied. As  for  me,  if  he  Ijad  proposed  to  make  the  voyage 
on  a  raft  I  should  have  jumped  at  the  offer!  It  was,  in 
truth,  a  suflicicnily  scvrrt-  experience.  Hut,  as  1  was  then 
at  eighteen,  I  should  have  welcomed  the  chance  of  mak- 
ing such  an  expedition,  even  if  I  had  accurately  realized 
all  the  accompaniments  and  all  the  details  c>f  it. 


110  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

"We  went  on  board  tlie  good  ship  Corinthian,  Captain 
Chadwick,  bound  for  New  York,  in  the  September  of  1828. 
Ship  and  captain  were  American. 

I  confess  that  my  iirst  feeling  on  entering  the  2:»lace 
wliich  was  to  be  my  liabitation  during  tlie  next  few  weeks 
was  one  of  dismay.  It  was  not  that  tlie  accommodation 
was  rough.  I  cared  little  enough  about  that,  and  should 
have  cared  as  little  had  it  been  much  rouirher.  But  it  was 
the  first  time  in  my  life  that  I  had  had  any  experience  of 
the  truth  of  the  proverb  that  misfortune  makes  one  ac- 
quainted with  strange  bedfellows!  Of  course  there  was 
in  that  part  of  the  vessel  allotted,  to  the  steerage  passen- 
gers no  sort  of  enclosure  for  the  different  berths,  some 
dozen  or  score  of  them,  in  which  the  steerage  passengers 
had  to  sleep.  No  sort  of  privacy  either  by  day  or  by 
night  was  possible;  add  to  which,  the  ventilation  was  veiy 
insufficient,  and  the  whole  place  was,  perhaps  nnavoida- 
bly,  dirty  to  a  revolting  degree.  My  father  almost  at 
once  betook  himself  to  his  berth,  and  rarely  left  it  during 
the  entire  voyage — indeed,  he  was  for  the  most  part  inca- 
pable of  doing  so,  having  been  suffering  from  his  usual 
sick  headache  more  or  less  during  the  whole  time.  If  the 
voyage  was  a  bad  time  for  me,  it  must  have  been  far 
worse  for  him.  Indeed,  I  was  scarcely  ever  below  except 
when  attending  on  him. 

Before  the  first  night  came  I  declared  my  intention  of 
making  no  use  of  the  berth  assigned  to  me.  Where  Avas 
I  to  pass  the  night  then?  I  said  I  should  pass  it  on  deck. 
I  had  a  huge  greatcoat,  a  regular  "  dreadnought,"  so  called 
in  those  days,  and  made  Avith  innumerable  cnpes;  and 
with  that  I  should  do  well  enough  during  the  September 
night.  My  declared  intention  brought  an  avalanche  of  rid- 
icule down  on  my  head,  not  only  from  my  fellow-inhabi- 
tants of  the  steerage,  but  from  the  captain  and  Ins  mates, 
A  night  on  deck,  or  at  the  very  most  two,  would  make  me 
glad  and  thankful  enough  for  the  shelter  of  my  berth.  I 
did  not  know  what  I  was  talking  of,  but  should  soon  find 
out,  etc. 

Well,  the  first  night  passed !  It  was  a  fine  moonlight. 
And  I  enjoyed  it  and  the  novelty  of  ray  surroundings 


VISIT   TO  AMERICA.  HI 

keenly.  I  slept,  wrapped  in  my  capacious  greatcoat,  two 
or  three  hours  at  a  time,  and  morning  found  me  none  the 
worse.  The  second  night  was  less  delightful  !  I  was 
weary,  and  began  to  feel  the  need  of  sleep  after  a  fashion 
to  which  I  was  more  accustomed.  And  then  came  bad 
weather,  wet  and  cold  !  I  got  some  shelter  in  an  erection 
on  the  deck  called  the  "round-house  ;"  but  the  want  of 
proper  rest  was  beginning  to  tell  upon  me,  and  the  fatigue 
was  very  severe.  I  think  that,  despite  my  horror  of  the 
steerage  and  the  world  that  inhabited  it,  I  should  have 
succumbed  and  accepted  its  shelter  if  my  determination 
not  to  do  so  had  been  confined  to  my  own  breast,  and  no 
necessity  had  existed  for  triumphing  over  the  ridicule  and 
the  unanimous  prophecies  of  the  other  passengers  and  the 
ship's  officers.     As  it  was,  I  was  safe  not  to  yield  ! 

I  did  not  yield  !  Our  voyage  was  rather  longer  than  an 
average  one,  and  during  all  the  thirty-eight  days  that  it 
lasted  I  never  passed  a  night  below,  or  went  there  at  all 
save  for  the  purpose  of  changing  my  clothes  or  attending 
on  my  father,  who  lay  sick  and  suffering  in  his  berth  during 
almost  the  whole  time.  It  Avas  a  severer  exi)erience  than 
it  may  seem,  probably,  to  the  imagination  of  those  who 
never  made  a  similar  experiment.  When  I  reached  New 
York  I  felt  as  if  it  would  be  heaven  to  go  to  sleep  for  a 
week, 

\Vc  had  one  short  spell  of  very  bad  weather,  and  were, 
as  I  subsequently  learned,  in  coTisiderable  danger  for  an 
liour  or  so.  We  had  been  running  all  day  befure  a  fair 
wind  exactly  aft,  which,  continually  increasing  in  violence, 
assumed  at  sun-down  llic  force  of  a  gale.  Nevertheless, 
Captain  Chadwick,  against  the  advice  of  an  old  English 
merchant  captain,  who  was  a  ])assenger,  could  not  prevail 
on  himself  to  luse  the  a<lvanta<;e  of  so  g<)o<l  a  wind,  and 
detennined  to  "carry  on."  But  as  the  night  advanced 
the  wiiiil  continuecl  to  increase  and  the  sea  to  lise,  till  the 
danger  of  being  "pooped,"  if  we  continiu-d  to  run  before 
it,  became  too  great  to  be  neglected.  Hut  (he  danger  of 
l>utting  about,  "  broadiing-to "  I  believe  is  the  correct 
term,  was  also  great. 

It  became  neccssaty,  however,  to  do  this   about  mid- 


112  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

night,  and  I  was  the  only  passengei"  on  deck  during  the 
operation.  Tlie  English  merchant  captain  mentioned  above 
kept  running  uj)  for  a  few  minutes  at  a  time  every  now 
and  then;  but  he  had  a  wife  and  young  children  aboard, 
and  would  not  remain  long  away  from  them.  The  good 
ship,  as  she  came  round  into  the  trough  of  the  sea,  lay 
down  on  her  side  to  such  a  degree  that  my  body,  as  I 
clung  to  the  bulwark  on  the  weather-side,  swung  away  to 
the  leeward  in  such  a  sort  that  I  was  for  a  minute  hanging 
from  a  hold  above  my  head,  instead  of  clinging  to  one  at 
ray  side.  And  I  saw  and  heard — very  specially  heard — 
every  sail  blown  away  from  the  yards.  I  heard,  too,  the 
shout  of  the  men  on  the  yards,  "  We  can't  get  an  inch," 
as  they  strove  to  reef.  Much  danger  was  occasioned  to 
the  men  by  the  block  at  the  foot  of  the  mainsail  remain- 
ing attached  to  the  sail,  which  was  blown  about,  before  it 
could  be  secured,  with  a  violence  which  knocked  the  cook's 
galley  to  atoms. 

And  all  this  I  saw  to  my  great  delight.  For  I  consid- 
ered a  storm  at  sea  as  a  part  of  the  experiences  of  a  voyage 
which  it  would  have  been  a  great  pity  to  have  missed,  and 
was  altogether  unaware  that  we  Avere  in  any  real  danger. 
Towards  daybreak  the  gale  moderated,  and  before  noon  it 
was  perfectly  calm,  and  all  hands  were  busy  in  bending  a 
new  suite  of  sails. 

With  all  this  I  should  have  enjoyed  the  voyage  immense- 
ly had  it  not  been  for  the  nature  of  the  companionship 
to  which  I  should  have  been  condemned  if  I  had  not  es- 
caped from  it  in  the  manner  I  have  described.  The  utter 
rouglmess  of  the  accommodation,  the  scanty  and  not  very 
delicate  food,  would  all  have  signified  to  me  in  those  days 
absolutely  nothing.  But  I  could  not  tolerate  the  compan- 
ionship of  the  men  and  women  with  whom  I  should  have 
lived.  I  could  have  no  doubt  tolerated  it  some  twenty 
years  later,  but  it  was  at  that  time  too  new  to  me.  I  take  it 
that  ill-luck  had  given  us  a  rather  specially  bad  lot  as  our 
destined  companions  in  the  steerage.  I  had  seen  quite 
enough  of  the  laborers  on  the  fann  at  Harrow  to  know 
Avhat  a  man  living  Avith  his  family  on  a  ])0und  a  week  was 
like,  and  I  could  have  managed  to  live,  if  necessary,  Avith 


VISIT   TO   AMERICA.  113 

such  men  for  a  week  or  two  without  any  insuperable  re- 
pugnance. But  some  of  the  denizens  of  that  steerage  bol- 
fjia  were  blackguards  of  a  description  quite  new  to  me. 

Two  figures  among  them  are  still,  after  nearly  sixty 
years,  present  to  my  mental  vision.  One  was  a  large, 
loosely-made,  middle-aged  man,  who  always  wore  a  long 
gray-serge  dressing-gown.  He  Avas  accompanied  by  no- 
body belonging  to  him,  and  I  never  had  the  least  idea 
what  grade  or  department  of  life  he  could  have  belonged 
to.  His  language,  though  horrible,  as  regards  the  ideas 
conveyed  by  it,  was  grammatically  far  superior  to  that  of 
most  of  those  around  him;  and  he  was  very  clever  with 
his  hands,  executing  various  little  arrangements  for  his 
own  comfort  with  the  skill  of  a  carpenter,  and  almost  with 
that  of  an  upholsterer.  His  face  was  thoroughly  bad, 
with  loose,  baggy,  flaccid,  pale  cheeks,  and  a  great,  coarse, 
hanging  under  lip.  He  always  looked  exceedingly  dirty, 
but,  nevertheless,  was  always  clean-shaved.  He  was  al- 
ways talking,  always  haranguing  those  who  would  listen 
to  him;  always  extolling  the  country  for  which  we  were 
bound  and  its  institutions,  and  cxj)ressing  the  most  ven- 
omous hatred  of  England  and  all  things  English.  I  used 
to  listen  to  him  during  my  hours  of  attendance  on  my  fa- 
ther with  an  excess  of  loathing  which  I  doubt  not  I  failed 
to  conceal  from  him,  and  which,  acting  like  a  strong  brine, 
has  preserved  his  memory  in  my  mind  all  these  years. 

The  otiier  was  much  less  objectionable.  He  was  a 
younger  man  and  called  himself  a  farmer,  but  his  farming 
had  evidently  run  much  to  horse-dealing,  and  be  dressed 
in  a  horsey  style.  He  had  a  miserable,  sickly  wife  with 
him,  who  had  once  upon  a  time  been  pretty.  She  wore 
the  remains  of  dresses  that  had  once  been  smart,  and  was 
by  far  the  most  slatternly  woman  I  ever  saw.  Her  hus- 
band, so  far  as  I  could  obscrv-e,  did  not  ill-treat  her,  but 
he  was  constantly  saying  unkind  things  in  language  which 
should  have  made  her  blush,  if  she  had  not  left  all  blushes 
far  beliind  her,  and  at  which  the  other  worse  brute  used 
to  laugh  with  obstreperous  approbation.  He  could  sing, 
too,  as  I  thought  at  that  time,  very  well,  and  used  to  sing 
a  song  telling  how  "  Tlie  farm  I  now  hold  on  your  honor's 


114  WHAT    I  REMEMBER. 

estate  is  the  same  that  my  grandfather  held,"  etc.  The 
tune  of  it  runs  in  my  head  to  this  day;  and  I  remember 
tliinking  that  if  the  song  related  the  singer's  own  fort- 
unes "his  honor"  must  have  gained  by  the  change  of  ten- 
ant, however  many  generations  of  ancestors  may  have  held 
it  before  him. 

By  the  time  our  voyage  came  to  an  end  I  was  pretty 
nearly  worn  out  by  want  of  rest  and  night-and-day  expos- 
ure of  Moather.  But,  to  own  the  truth  honestly,  I  was 
supported  by  a  sense  of  pride  in  having  sustained  an 
amount  of  fatigue  which  none  other  in  the  ship  had,  and 
few  probably  could  have,  sustained,  and  which  I  had  been 
defied  to  sustain.  And  after  I  had  had  a  sleep  "  the  round 
of  the  clock,"  as  the  phrase  goes,  I  was  none  the  worse. 
Moreover,  it  was  a  matter  of  extreme  consolation  to  me  to 
think  that  I  was  accumulating  a  store  of  strange  experi- 
ences of  a  kind  which  nothing  in  my  previous  life  had 
seemed  to  promise  me.  But,  above  all,  the  approach  to 
New  York,  and  the  sight  of  the  bay,  was,  I  felt,  more  than 
enough  to  repay  me  for  all  the  discomfort  of  the  voyage. 
I  thought  it  by  far  the  grandest  sight  I  had  ever  seen,  as 
indeed,  it  doubtless  was. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  been  much  struck  Avith  the 
town  of  New  York.  I  remember  thinking  it  had  the  look 
of  an  overgrown  colossal  village,  and  that  it  was  very  dif- 
ferent in  appearance  from  any  English  city.  It  seemed  to 
me,  too,  that  there  was  a  strange  contrast  between  the 
roomy,  clean,  uncity-like  appearance  of  the  place,  and  the 
apparent  hurry  and  energetic  ways  of  the  inhabitants.  I 
remember  also  remarking  the  very  generally  youthful  ap- 
])earance  of  those  who  seemed  to  be  transacting  most  of 
the  business  of  the  place. 

We  M'ere  received  most  kindly  by  an  old  friend  of  my 
parents,  Mr.  Wilkes,  the  imcle,  I  think,  or,  perhaps,  great- 
uncle  of  him  who  as  Commodore  Wilkes  of  the  Trent  sub- 
sequently became  known  to  the  world,  as  having  very 
nearly  set  his  country  and  England  by  the  ears!  How 
and  why  old  Mr.  Wilkes  was  a  friend  of  my  father's  I  do 
not  know,  but  suspect  that  it  was  through  tlie  medium  of 
some  very  old  friends  of  my  grandfather  Milton,  of  the 


VISIT  TO  AMERICA.  115 

name  of  Garnet.  Two  very  old  ladies  of  that  name,  spin- 
ster sisters,  I  remember  to  have  seen  at  Brighton  some 
twenty  or  five-and-twenty  years  ago.  I  remember  that 
Mr.  Wilkes  struck  me  as  a  remarkably  courteous  and  gen- 
tlemanlike old  man,  very  English  both  in  manners  and 
appearance,  in  a  blue  dress-coat  and  buff  waistcoat,  and 
long  white  hair,  I  fancy  that  he  was  connected  in  some 
way  (by  old  friendship  only,  I  imagine)  with  the  Misses 
Wright,  and  I  gathered  that  he  altogether  disapproved  of 
Frances  Wright's  philanthropic  Nashoba  enterprise,  and 
consequently  of  the  share  in  it  which  my  father  and  moth- 
er, on  behalf  of  my  brother  Henry,  had  undertaken.  Of 
the  wisdom  of  his  misgivings  the  result  furnished  abun- 
dant proof. 

My  recollections  of  the  journey  from  New  York  to 
Cincinnati  are  of  a  very  fragmentary  description ;  those  of 
so  very  many  other  journeys  during  the  well-nigh  sixty 
years  which  have  elapsed  since  it  was  performed  have 
nearly  obliterated  them.  I  remember  being  struck  by  the 
uncomfortable  roughness  of  all  the  lodging  accommoda- 
tion, as  contrasted  with  the  great  abundance,  and  even, 
as  it  appeared  to  me,  luxury  of  the  commissariat  depart- 
ment. 

We  passed  by  Pittsburgh  and  crossed  the  Alleghany 
Mountains,  the  former  remaining  in  my  memory  as  a 
nightmare  of  squalor,  and  tlie  latter  as  a  vision  of  beauty 
and  tkliifht.  We  travelled  loui;  davs  throu2;h  districts  of 
untouched  forest  over  the  often  described  "corduroy" 
roads.  I  was  utterly  disappointed  by  the  forests;  all  that 
I  saw  of  tlu-m  appeared  to  mc  a  miserable  collection  of 
lank,  unwholesome -looking,  woebegone  stems,  instead  of 
Windsor  Forest  on  a  vastly  increased  scale,  which  was,  I 
take  it,  what  I  expected.  I  rcuu-mber,  too,  being  nnich 
struck  by  the  ])erformance  of  the  drivers  of  the  stages 
over  the  corduroy  roads  aforesaid,  and  often  over  boggy 
tract.s  of  half-rcclainie<l  forest  amid  the  blackened  stumps 
of  l)urned  trees.  The  things  they  ])roposcd  to  themselves 
to  acconijtlish,  and  did  accomplish  without  coming  to 
grief,  other  than  shaking  every  tooth  in  the  heads  of  their 
passengers,  would  liavc  made  an  P^iglish  coachman's  hair 


116  WHAT  I   KEMEMBER. 

stand  on  end.  To  have  seen  them  at  their  work  over  a 
decent  bit  of  road  would,  on  the  other  hand,  have  provoked 
the  laughter  and  contempt  of  the  same  critics.  Arms  and 
legs  seemed  to  take  an  equal  part  in  the  work;  the  whip 
was  never  idle,  and  the  fatigue  must  have  been  excessive. 
I  do  not  think  that  any  man  could  have  driven  fifty  miles 
at  a  stretch  over  those  roads. 

Cincinnati  was  reached  at  last.  The  journey  to  me  had 
been  delightful  in  the  highest  degree,  simply  from  the 
novelty  of  everything.  As  things  were  done  at  that  time 
it  Was  one  of  very  great  fatigue,  but  in  those  days  I  seemed 
to  be  incapable  of  fatigue.  At  all  events  it  was  all  child's 
play  in  comparison  with  my  crossing  the  ocean  in  the  good 
shi])  Corinthian. 

We  found  my  mother  and  two  sisters  and  brother  Henry 
well,  and  established  in  a  roomy,  bright-looking  house, 
built  of  wood,  and  all  white  Avith  the  exception  of  the 
green  Venetian  blinds.  It  stood  in  its  own  "grounds," 
but  these  grounds  consisted  of  a  large  field,  uncultivated 
save  for  a  few  potatoes  in  one  corner  of  it;  and  the  whole 
appearance  of  the  place  was  made  unkempt-looking  —  not 
squalid,  because  everything  was  too  new  and  clean-look- 
ing for  that — by  uncompleted  essays  towards  the  making 
of  a  road  from  the  entrance-gate  to  the  house,  and  by 
fragments  of  boarding  and  timber,  which  it  had  apparent- 
ly been  worth  no  one's  while  to  collect  ?ifter  the  building  of 
the  house  was  completed.  With  all  this  there  was  an  air 
of  roominess  and  brightness  which  seemed  to  me  very 
pleasant.  The  house  was  some  five  or  ten  minutes'  walk 
from  what  might  be  considered  the  commencement  of  the 
town,  but  it  is  no  doubt  by  this  time,  if  it  still  stands  at 
all,  more  nearly  in  the  centre  of  it. 


1 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

VISIT  TO  AMERICA — (co7itinued) . 

My  father  and  I  remained  between  five  and  six  months 
at  Cincinnati,  and  my  remembrances  of  the  time  are  pleas- 
ant ones.  In  the  way  of  amusement,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  there  was  not  much  besides  rambling  over  the 
country  with  my  brother,  the  old  companion  of  those  Lon- 
don rambles  which  seemed  to  me  then  almost  as  far  off  in 
the  dim  past  as  they  do  now.  But  we  were  free,  tied  to 
no  bounds,  and  very  slightly  to  any  hours.  And  I  enjoyed 
those  rambles  immensely.  I  do  not  remember  that  the 
country  about  Cincinnati  struck  me  as  especially  interest- 
ing or  beautiful,  and  the  Ohio,  la  belle  rivUre,  distinctly 
disappointed  me.  But  it  was  a  new  world,  and  every  ob- 
ject, whether  animate  or  inanimate,  was  for  us  full  of  in- 
terest. 

Looking  back  to  those  Cincinnati  days,  I  have  to  say 
that  I  liked  the  Americans,  principally,  I  think,  at  that 
time,  as  far  as  my  remembrances  serve,  because  some 
quality  in  their  manners  and  behavior  had  the  effect  of 
making  me  loss  sjiy  with  ihcm  than  with  others.  I  was 
then,  and  to  a  great  degree  have  never  ceased  to  be,  pain- 
fully shy.  How  miserably  this  weakness  afflicts  those  who 
suffer  from  it,  how  it  distpialifies  them  and  puts  them  at  a 
disadvantage  in  circumstances  constantly  recurring,  those 
who  are  free  from  it  cannot  imagine.  And  they  glorify 
their  superi»jrity  by  saying  all  sorts  of  lianl  things  to  those 
wlio  suffer  from  shyness — very  unjustly  in  my  opinion. 
Shyness  proceeds  in  almost  all  cases,  I  sliould  say  probably 
in  all,  from  ditlidence.  A  man  who  thinks  sufliciently  well 
of  himself  is  never  shy.  Diil  any  one  ever  see  a  vain  man 
shv?  I  do  not  think  the  Americans  are  an  especially  vain 
j)eop]e;  but  there  arc  specialties  of  their  social  condition- 
which  lead  to  every  American  citizen's  estimate  of  himself, 


118  WHAT   I    REMEMBER. 

from  the  cradle  upwards,  being  equal  to  bis  estimate  of 
any  otber  man.  And  one  consequence  of  tbis  is  a  certain 
frank  and  unconstrained  manner  in  tbeir  intercourse  witb 
strangers  or  new  acquaintances  wbicb  is  invaluable  to  a 
sby  man. 

I  remember  an  incident  of  my  first  year  at  Wincbester, 
wben  I  was  between  ten  and  eleven,  wbicb  is  illustrative 
of  tbe  misery  wbicb  slwness  may  inflict.  A  boy  about  a 
year  my  senior,  and  taller  tban  I,  Avas  constantly  annoying 
and  bullying  me,  and  one  day  in  tbe  presence  of  a  consid- 
erable number  of  onlookers  cballenged  me  to  figbt  bim. 
I  refused,  and  naturally,  of  course,  was  considered  a  cow- 
ard, and  bad  to  endure  tbe  jibes  and  taunts  due  to  one. 
Tbe  explanation  of  my  refusal  of  my  enemy's  cballenge, 
bowever — never  offered  to  mortal  ear  before  tbe  confiding 
of  it  to  tbis  page — was  not  tbat  I  was  afraid  to  fight,  but 
was  too  shy  to  do  so.  It  was  not  that  I  could  not  face  all 
tbat  his  fists  could  do  to  me,  as  I  shortly  afterwards 
showed  him;  but  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  face  the 
2:)ublicity  of  the  proposed  contest — tbe  formality  of  it,  the 
ring,  in  tbe  centre  of  which  I  should  have  to  j^erform,  and 
to  be  a  spectacle,  and  have  my  j^erformance  criticised. 
All  this  was  too  absolutely  intolerable  to  me.  But  early 
tbe  next  morning,  chancing  to  catch  my  adversary  "in 
meads"  with  only  one  or  two  others  near  bim,  I  attacked 
him,  to  his  utter  astonishment  and  dismay,  and  without 
very  much  diflnculty  gave  him  as  good  a  ])ummelling  as 
my  heart  desired. 

Whether  tbis  incident  originated  the  nickname  "Badg- 
er," which  I  bore  at  Wincbester,  as  being  one  indisposed 
to  fight,  but  likely  to  prove  dangerous  if  "  drawn,"  I  do 
not  know. 

It  was  during  our  stay  at  Cincinnati  that  my  father  and 
I  paid  a  visit  to  an  establishment  of  "Shaking  Quakers," 
as  they  were  called,  and  I  believe  called  themselves,  at 
Mount  Lebanon,  about  five-and-twenty  miles  from  Cincin- 
nati. AVe  were  hospitably  received,  paying  a  moderate 
remuneration  for  our  lodmncf  and  food.  Both  these  were 
supplied  of  exactly  the  same  kind  and  quality  as  used  by 
the  inmates  of  the  establishment,  and  w^ere,  though  very 


VISIT  TO  AMERICA.  119 

simple  and  plain,  admirable  in  quality.  The  extensive 
farm  on  which  the  Shakers  lived,  and  which  they  culti- 
vated by  their  own  labor,  was  their  own  property,  having 
been  originally  purchased  at  a  time  when  land  was  of  very 
small  market  value,  and  brought  under  tillage  by  the  la- 
bor of  the  members.  But  nothing  in  the  nature  of  private 
property  was  hehl  or  retained  by  any  one. 

The  number  of  women  was  about  equal  to  that  of  the 
men.  But  there  w^ere  no  children.  None  were  born  in 
the  establishment,  and  no  man  or  Avoman  joining  it  was 
allowed  to  bring  any.  Nor  was  marriage  nor  connubial 
life  in  any  sort  recognized  or  permitted.  And,  of  course, 
these  conditions  rendered  the  Avhole  experiment  wholly 
useless  as  an  example  for  the  conduct  of  any  ordinary 
community,  or  for  an  indication  of  what  may  be  econom- 
ically accomplished  for  such. 

We  did  not  eat  in  company  with  the  members,  though 
faring,  as  I  have  said,  exactly  as  they  did,  but  we  were 
present  at  their  religious  worship,  or  at  w'hat  stood  in  the 
place  of  such.  This  consisted  in  a  species  of  dance,  if  the 
uncouth  jumping  or  "  shaking  "  which  they  practised  could 
be  so  called.  The  men  and  women  were  assembled  and 
danced  in  the  same  room,  but  not  together.  They  jumped 
and  "  shook "  themselves  in  two  divided  bodies.  Any 
spectator  would  l)e  disposed  to  imagine  that  the  whole 
object  of  the  performance  was  bodily  exercise.  It  seemed 
to  be  carried  on  to  the  utmost  extent  that  breath  and  bodi- 
ly fatigue  would  ])ermit.  Many  were  mopi)ing  the  per- 
s])iration  from  their  faces.  No  laughing  or  gladness  or 
exhilaration  whatever  appeared  to  accompany  or  to  be 
caused  by  the  exercise.  All  was  done  with  an  air  of  per- 
fect solemnity. 

All  the  men  and  all  the  Avonicn  seemed  to  be  in  the  en- 
joyment of  excellent  health.  Most  of  them  seemed  to  be 
somewhat  more  than  well  nourished  —  rather  tending  to 
obesity.  They  were  llorid,  round-faced,  sleek  and  heavy 
in  figure.  I  observed  no  laughter,  and  very  liltle  conver- 
sation anudig  them.  The  womi-n  were  almost  all  in  the 
jirime  of  life,  and  many  young.  ]>ut  there  was  a  singular 
absence  of  good  looks  among  them.     Some  had  regular 


120  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

features  enough,  but  they  were  all  heavy,  fat,  dull-look- 
ing, like  well-kept  animals,  I  could  not  spy  one  pair  of 
bright  QjQS  in  the  place.  All,  men  and  women,  were  quite 
simply  but  thoroughly  well  and  cleanly  dressed,  not  alto- 
gether, as  I  remember,  in  uniform,  but  with  very  great 
uniformity.  Gray  cloth  of  very  fair  quality  was  the  pre- 
vailing material  of  dress  for  both  sexes. 

Various  articles  useful  for  country  life  of  the  simpler 
sort  were  manufactured  by  them  for  sale.  And  I  learned 
that  all  the  articles  so  made  had  throughout  the  countiy 
side  a  high  reputation  for  excellence  in  their  kinds.  And 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  Shaker  community  was 
thriving  and  probably  accumulating  money.  To  what 
object  they  should  do  so  seems  a  difficult  question. 

I  heard  of  no  sickness  or  infirmity  among  them.  Such 
there  must  of  course  have  been  occasionally,  and  I  presume 
that  the  infirm,  the  sick,  and  the  dying  must  have  been 
cared  for. 

These  people  lived  in  perfect  equality;  and  their  com- 
munity proved  that  a  community  of  men  and  women  (un- 
burdened with  children)  could  by  an  amount  of  labor  by 
no  means  excessive,  or  even  arduous,  provide  themselves 
with  an  ample  sufficiency  of  all  things  needful  for  their 
material  well-being  and  comfort.  It  is  true  that  they  paid 
no  rent,  but  I  am  disposed  to  think,  from  what  I  heard, 
that  they  might  have  paid  a  moderate  rent  for  the  land 
they  cultivated,  and  still  continued  to  do  well.  But  it  was 
impossible  to  avoid  the  reflection  that  this  well-being  was 
merely  that  of  well-kept  animals.  There  was  an  air  of  un- 
mistakable stupidity  over  the  whole  establishment.  No- 
body laughed.  Nobody  seemed  to  converse.  There  was 
excellent  lodging,  clothing,  and  food  in  plenty  till  they 
died  !  And  that  was  all.  Perhaj^s  it  may  be  fairly  as- 
sumed that  no  one,  save  people  of  very  mediocre  powers 
and  intelligence,  had  ever  felt  tempted  to  become  a  Shak- 
ing Quaker.  But  it  can  hardly  1)C  said  that  their  experi- 
ment exhibited  a  very  tem])ting  sample  of  a  world  to  be 
modelled  after  their  fashion  ! 

It  has  been  said  by  some  observers  that  this  materially 
flourishing  establishment  has  so  many  points  of  similarity 


VISIT   TO  AMERICA.  121 

with  the  conventual  institutions  of  Roman  Catholicism 
that  it  may  be  considered  as  supplying  the  same  natural 
want  to  Avhich  those  institutions  are  supposed  to  cor- 
respond, an  asylum,  that  is  to  say,  for  those  of  either  sex, 
who,  f I'om  various  circumstances  of  fortune,  or  of  tempera- 
ment, are  unfitted  for  the  struggles  of  the  world,  and  find 
themselves  left  stranded  on  the  banks  of  the  great  social 
stream.  The  impressions  I  received  from  my  visit  to 
Mount  Lebanon  do  not  dispose  me  to  accept  any  such  ex- 
phanation  of  the  Shaking  Quaker  raison  iVttre.  I  saw  no 
signs  whatever,  among  either  the  men  or  the  women,  of 
individuals  who  had  been  tempest- tossed  in  any  of  the 
world's  maelstroms,  or  of  temperaments  for  which  the 
contemplative  life  might  be  supposed  to  have  had  greater 
attractions  than  the  active  life  of  the  world.  The  charac- 
teristics which  were  most  notably  observable  were  of  a  di- 
ametrically opposed  kind.  One  would  say  that  they  were 
men  and  women  thoroughly  and  unanimously  minded  to 
make  for  tliemselves  in  the  most  judiciously  contrived 
manner  a  comfortable  and  clean  sty,  with  abundant  and 
perennial  supply  of  everything  needed  for  their  bodily 
wants.  Whether  love  or  hatred,  as  they  are  found  to 
exist  in  monastic  communities,  existed  among  them,  of 
course  I  had  not  sufficient  opportunity  for  even  guessing, 
liut  assuredly  it  may  be  said  with  some  confidence  of 'not 
l)eing  mistaken,  that  neither  those  nor  any  other  passions 
liad  left  any  of  their  usual  marks  on  those  sleek  bodies  and 
l)lacid,  meaningless  faces.  One  would  have  said  that  the 
main  and  engrossing  object  of  existence  at  Mount  Lebanon 
was  digesting. 

I  have  recently  learned  that  the  community  continues 
to  exist  under  the  same  conditions  as  those  under  which  I 
saw  it. 

I  made  accpiaintanee,  I  remember,  at  Cincinnati,  with 
Mr.  Longwortli,  who  was,  or  became  well  known  through- 
out Auieriea  for  his  successful  efforts  in  viticulture.  He 
was  one  of  those  men  wlio,  being  by  no  means  entertain- 
ing companions  on  any  otlu'r  subject,  become  so,  if  you 
will  talk  to  them  upon  their  own.  I  have  often  thought 
that  the  "sink  the  shop"  maxim  is  a  great  mistake.      If  I 


122  WHAT   I   HEMEMBEIl. 

bad  to  p-ass  an  lionr  witli  a  chimney-sweep  I  should  prob- 
ably find  liiiu.  very  good  company  if  he  would  talk  ex- 
clusively about  SAVceping  chimneyf^.  Mr.  Longworth  was 
extremely  willing  to  talk  exclusively  on  schemes  for  the 
introduction  of  the  vine  into  the  Western  States,  and  on 
that  subject  was  well  worth  listening  to.  I  find  a  note  in 
a  diary,  Avritten  by  mo  at  that  time,  to  the  eflFect  that  he 
was  then  (1828)  emjiloying  a  large  number  of  Germans  on 
his  estate  at  Columbia,  near  Cincinnati,  at  a  little  less  than 
one  shilling  a  day  and  their  food.  I  remarked  that  this 
seemed  scarcely  in  accord  with  the  current  accounts  of 
the  high  price  of  labor  in  the  States,  and  was  answered 
that  his — Mr.  Longworth's — bailiff  had  said  to  him  the 
other  day,  "  If  those  men  get  to  Cincinnati  they  will  bo 
spoiled'''' — a  little  touch  which  rather  vividly  illustrates 
one  phase  of  the  difference  made  in  all  things  by  raihvay 
communication. 

But  the  most  remarkable. acquaintance  we  made  at  Cin- 
cinnati was  Hiram  Powers,  the  subsequently  well-known 
sculptor,  with  whom  I  again  fell  in  many  years  afterwards 
at  Florence,  when  he  was  living  there  with  his  large  fam- 
ily, having  just  acquired  a  great  and  lucrative  degree  of 
celebrity  by  his  statue  of  "The  Greek  Slave,"  purchased 
by  an  Englishman  whom  my  mother  had  taken  to  visit  his 
studio.  I  do  not  know  by  what  chance  she  had  first  be- 
come acquainted  with  him  at  Cincinnati. 

He  was  at  that  time  about  eighteen  years  old,  much 
about  my  own  contemporary;  and  my  mother  at  once  re- 
marked him  as  a  young  man  of  exceptional  talent  and 
promise.  He  was  then  seeking  to  live  by  his  wits,  with 
every  prospect  of  finding  that  capital  abundantly  suffi- 
cient for  the  purpose.  There  was  a  Frenchman  named 
Dorfeuille  at  Cincinnati,  who  had  established  what  he 
called  a  "museum" — a  show,  in  fact,  in  which  he  collected 
anything  and  everything  that  he  thought  would  excite  the 
curiosity  of  the  people  and  induce  them  to  pay  their  quar- 
ter dollars  for  admission.  And  this  M.  Dorfeuille,  cleverly 
enough  appreciating  young  Powers'  cai)abilities  of  being 
useful  to  him,  had  engaged  him  as  factotum  and  general 
manager  of  his  establishment.     Powers,  casting  about  for 


VISIT  TO  AMERICA.  123 

some  new  "  attraction"  for  the  museum,  chanced  one  even- 
ing to  talk  over  the  matter  with  my  mother.  And  it  oc- 
curred to  her  to  suggest  to  him  to  get  up  a  representation 
of  one  of  Dante's  holgias  as  described  in  the  Inferno.  The 
nascent  sculptor,  with  his  imaginative  brain,  artistic  eye, 
and  clever  fingers,  caught  at  the  idea  on  the  instant.  And 
forthwith  they  set  to  work,  my  mother  explaining  the 
poet's  conceptions,  suggesting  the  composition  of  ''tab- 
leaux," and  supplying  details,  Avhile  Powers  designed  and 
executed  the  figures  and  the  necessary  mise  en  scd?ie. 

Some  months  of  preparation  were  needed  before  the 
work  could  be  accomplished,  and  Dorfeuille,  I  remember, 
began  to  have  misgivings  as  to  recouping  himself  for  the 
not  inconsiderable  cost.  But  at  last  all  was  ready.  A 
vast  amount  of  curiosity  had  been  excited  in  the  place  by 
preliminary  aimouncements,  and  the  result  was  an  immense 
success.  I  have  preserved  for  nearly  sixty  years,  and  have 
now  before  me,  the  programme  and  bill  of  the  exhibition 
as  it  was  drawn  up  by  my  mother.  It  is  truly  a  curiosity 
in  its  kind,  and  I  am  tempted  to  rcj)roduce  it  here.  But 
it  is  too  long,  occupying  four  pages  of  a  folio  sheet.  There 
are  quotations  from  the  Inferno,  translated  by  my  mother 
(no  copy  of  any  published  translation  being  then  and  there 
procurable),  explanations  of  the  author's  meaning,  and  de- 
8crii)tions  in  very  bugaboo  style,  and  in  every  variety  of 
typo,  with  capitals  of  every  sort  of  size,  of  all  the  horrors 
of  the  supposed  scene. 

The  success  was  so  complete,  and  the  curiosity,  not  only 
of  the  Cincinnati  world  but  of  the  farmers  round  about  and 
their  families,  was  so  eager,  that  the  ])ress  of  spectators 
was  inconveniently  great,  and  M.  Dorfeuille  began  to  fear 
that  his  properties  might  be  damaged  l)y  indiscreet  desires 
to  touch  as  well  as  sec.  So  Powers  arranged  a  slight  metal 
rod  as  a  barrier  between  the  show  and  the  spectators,  aiid 
contrived  to  charge  it  with  electricity,  while  an  announce- 
ment, couched  in  terril»le  and  mystic  terms  and  in  verse, 
by  my  motlier,  to  the  effect  that  an  awful  doom  awaited 
any  mortal  rash  enough  to  ai»])roach  the  mysteries  of  the 
nether  world  too  nearly,  was  appendccl  to  the  doors  and 
walls,     '['he  astonishment  ami  dismay  fell,  and  tiie  laugh- 


124  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

tcr  provoked,  by  those  who  were  rash  enough  to  do  so, 
may  be  imagined ! 

Upon  the  whole  tliosc  autumn  and  winter  months  passed 
pleasantly,  and  have  left  pleasant  recollections  in  my  mem- 
ory. Doubtless  there  were  many  causes  of  anxiety  for  my 
elders ;  but  to  the  best  of  my  remembrance  they  touched 
us  young  people  very  lightly. -We  had  many  more  or  less 
agreeable  acquaintances,  and  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of 
the  pleasure  I  received  from  the  fact  that  they  all  belonged 
to  types  that  were  altogether  new  to  me — if  indeed  it  could 
be  said  of  people,  to  me  so  apparently  unclassifiable,  that 
they  belonged  to  any  type  at  all.  The  cleverest  among 
them  Avas  a  Dr.  Price,  a  very  competent  physician  with  a 
large  practice,  a  foolish,  friendly  little  wife,  and  a  pair  of 
pretty  daughters.  He  was  a  jovial,  florid,  rotund  little 
man  who  professed,  more  even,  as  I  remember,  to  my  as- 
tonishment than  my  horror,  i:)erfect  atheism.  His  wife 
and  daughters  used  to  go  to  church  without  apparently 
producing  the  slightest  interruption  of  domestic  harmony. 
"  La  !  the  doctor  don't  think  anything  more  of  the  Bible 
than  of  an  old  newspaper!"  Mrs.  Price  would  say;  "but 
then  doctors,  you  know,  they  have  their  own  opinions  !" 
And  the  girls  used  to  say,  "  Papa  is  an  atheist,"  just  as 
they  would  have  said  of  the  multiform  persuasions  of  their 
acquaintances,  "  Mr.  This  is  a  Baptist,"  and  "  Mrs.  That  is 
a  Methodist."  And  I  remember  well  the  confusion  and 
displacement  occasioned  in  my  mind  by  finding  that  Dr. 
Price  did  not  seem  on  the  whole  to  be  an  abandoned  man, 
and  enjoyed  to  a  high  degree  the  respect  of  his  townsmen. 

The  two  pretty  daughters,  girls  of  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen, used  to  have  at  their  house  frequent  dances.  We 
were  constant  and  welcome  guests,  but,  alas !  I  was  not — 
either  then  or  ever  since — a  dancer ;  the  reason  being  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  that  which  prevented  my  fighting  at 
Winchester,  as  above  recorded.  I  was  too  shy  !  In  other 
words,  I  had  too  low  an  opinion  of  myself,  of  my  perform- 
ance as  a  dancer,  should  I  attempt  it,  and,  above  all,  of  my 
acceptability  as  a  partner,  ever  to  overcome  my  difiidence. 

I  was,  as  I  have  said  when  speaking  of  my  earliest  years, 
by  no  means  a  prepossessing  child,  and  as  a  young  man  I 


VISIT  TO  AMERICA,  125 

was  probably  less  so.  I  had  never  any  sort  of  pretension 
to  good  looks  or  to  elegance  of  figure.  I  was  five  feet 
eight  in  height,  and  thick,  sturdy,  and  ungainly  in  make, 
healthy  and  pure  in  complexion  and  skin  as  a  babj^,  but 
with  an  "abbreviated  nose" — as  George  Eliot  says  of  me 
in  finding  me  like  a  portrait  of  Galileo — and  pale-colored, 
lanky  hair.  All  which  would  not  have  signified  a  button 
if  I  could  have  been  as  ignorant  of  the  facts  in  question 
as  hundreds  of  my  contemporaries,  laboring  under  equal 
disadvantages,  were  in  their  own  case  ;  but  I  was  not  ig- 
norant of  these  facts,  and  the  consciousness  of  them  con- 
stituted a  most  mischievous  and  disqualifying  little  repast 
ofiE  the  tree  of  knowledge.  It  has,  among  many  other  re- 
sults, prevented  me  from  ever  dancing,  I  should  have 
liked  much,  very  much,  to  do  so,  I  was  abundantly  well 
disposed  to  seek  the  society  of  the  other  sex.  Though  I 
never  had  a  very  perfect  ear  for  tune,  I  had  a  markedly 
strong  perception  of  time  and  feeling  for  rhythm,  and 
therefore  should  probably  have  danced  Avell.  But  the  per- 
suasion that  any  girl  whom  I  might  have  induced  to  dance 
with  me  would  have  far  rather  been  dancing  with  some- 
body else  was  too  much  for  me  ! 

I  should  unquestionably  have  been  a  far  liappier  young 
fellow  if  I  had  undoubtingly  believed  myself  to  have  been 
adapted  in  all  respects  to  attract  the  favorable  attention 
and  conciliate  the  liking  of  all  I  met.  But  can  I  even  now, 
looking  back  over  the  vista  of  sixty  years,  regret  that  I 
was  able  to  see  myself  as  others  saw  me,  and  wish  that  I 
had  inliabited  that  fool's  paradise  which  is  planted  with 
conceits  in  place  of  insights? 

S<j  I  got  no  dancing  with  the  Cincinnati  girls.  But 
t-lierc  were  theatricals,  also,  at  the  liouse  of  Dr.  and  I\[rs, 
Price,  and  in  those  I  did  not  refuse  to  join.  It  may  seem 
that  this  would  have  been  at  least  as  great  a  trial  to  a  shy 
man  as  any  other  form  of  self-exliibition;  but  it  was  not 
BO,  I  think,  so  far  as  I  am  able  at  this  distance  of  time 
to  exaniiue  my  mind  upon  the  subject,  it  would  have  been 
impossible  for  me  to  attempt  liie  rejjresentation  of  any  per- 
sonage intended  to  be  attractive  to  the  spectator,  or  such  as 
to  be  confounded  in  his  mind  with  my  own  personality. 


126  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

But  it  was  proposed  that  I  should  act  Falstaff  in  the  "  Mer- 
ry Wives  of  AVindsor,"  and  to  this  the  difficulties  referred 
to  did  not  apply.  I  pla^'ed  Falstaff  with  immense  success 
to  an  assuredly  not  very  critical  audience.  My  own  im- 
pression, however,  is,  that  I  did  it  Avell,  I  think  that  I 
had  reason  to  flatter  myself,  as  I  did  flatter  myself  at  the 
time,  that  all  those  who  heard  me  understood  the  i)lay 
and  enjoyed  the  humor  of  the  situations  better  than  they 
had  done  before. 

I  have  played  many  parts  since,  on  various  stages,  in 
different  parts  of  the  world,  but  that,  I  think,  was  my  sole 
Shakesperian  attempt.  And  the  members  of  that  merry 
and  kindly  theatrical  company  !  They  have  made  their 
last  exit  from  the  larger  boards  we  are  all  treading,  every 
man  and  woman,  every  lad  and  lass  of  them.  Not  one 
but  the  old  Falstaff  of  the  company  remains  to  write  this 
chronicle  of  sixty  years  since  ! 

There  were  verj^  few  formal  meetings  among  the  nota- 
bilities of  the  little  Cincinnati  world  of  that  time,  but  there 
was  an  amount  of  homely  friendliness  that  impressed  me 
very  favorably;  and  there  was  plenty  of  that  generous 
and  abounding  hospitality  which  subsequent  experience 
has  taught  me  to  consider  an  especially  American  charac- 
teristic. I  have  since  that  time  shared  the  splendid  hos- 
pitality of  splendid  American  hosts,  and  I  have  been  un- 
der American  roofs  where  there  was  little  save  a  heartfelt 
welcome  to  offer.  But  the  heart-warming  effect  produced 
by  the  latter  was  the  same  in  both  cases.  How  often  have 
we  all  sat  at  magnificent  boards  where  the  host's  too  evi- 
dent delight  consisted  in  giving  you  what  you  could  not 
give  him,  and  in  the  exulting  manifestation  of  his  magnif- 
icence. This  is  very  rarely  the  feeling  of  an  American 
host.  He  is  thinking  not  of  himself,  but  of  you  ;  and  the 
object  he  is  striving  at  when  giving  you  of  his  best  is  that 
you  should  enjoy  yourself  while  under  his  roof ;  that  you 
should  have,  as  he  would  phrase  it,  "  a  good  time."  And, 
upon  my  word,  he  almost  invariably  succeeds. 

Nor  Avere  the  Cincinnati  girls  in  1829  like  the  New 
York  belles  of  1887.  But  there  was  much  of  the  same 
charm  about  them,  which  arises  from  unaffected  and  un- 


VISIT   TO   AMERICA.  127 

self-rco-ardincr  desire  to  please.  American  cjirls  are  ac- 
eased  of  being  desperate  flirts.  But  many  an  Englishman 
has  been  deceived  by  imagining  that  the  smiles  and  cheer- 
fulness and  laughing  chatter  of  some  charming  girl  new 
to  Europe  were  intended  for  his  special  benefit,  when  they 
were,  in  truth,  only  the  perfectly  natural  and  unaffected 
outcome  of  a  desire  to  do  her  duty  in  tliat  state  of  life  to 
which  it  has  pleased  God  to  call  her  !  Only  beams  falling, 
like  those  of  the  sun,  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust  alike  ! 

There  is  another  point  on  which  Americans,  both  men 
and  women,  are  very  generally  called  over  the  coals  by 
English  people,  as  I  think  somewhat  unreasonably.  They 
arc,  it  is  said,  everlastingly  talking  about  the  greatness 
and  grandeur  of  their  country,  and  never  easy  without  ex- 
torting admissions  of  this.  All  this  is  to  a  great  extent 
true  ;  at  least  to  this  extent,  that  an  American  is  always 
pleased  to  hear  the  greatness  of  his  country  recognized, 
but  when  I  remember  the  thoroughness  with  which  that 
cardinal  article  of  an  Englishman's  faith  (sixty  years  ago  !), 
that  every  Englishman  could  thrash  three  Frenchmen,  was 
enforced  with  entire  success  on  my  j^nithful  mind,  I  can 
hardly  find  it  in  my  conscience  to  blame  an  American's 
pride  in  his  country.  Why,  good  heavens  !  what  an  insen- 
sible block  he  would  be  if  he  was  not  proud  of  his  country, 
to  whose  greatness,  it  is  to  be  observed,  each  individ- 
ual American  now  extant  has  contributed  in  a  greater  de- 
gree than  can  be  said  to  l)e  the  case  as  regards  England 
and  every  extant  Englishman  ;  inasmuch  as  our  position 
lias  been  won  by  the  work  of,  say  a  thousand  years,  and 
his  by  that  of  less  than  a  century.  Surely  the  creation  of 
the  United  States  as  they  now  exist  within  that  time  is 
such  a  feat  of  human  intelligence  and  energy  as  the  world 
has  never  before  seen,  and  is  scared}'  likely  to  see  again. 
I  confess  that  the  expression  of  American  i)atri()tism  is 
never  offensive  to  me.  I  feel  somewliat  as  the  old  Cornish 
wrestler  felt,  who  said,  with  immense  jiride,  when  he  was 
told  that  his  son  liad  "whopped"  the  whole  ])arisli,  "Ay, 
I  should  think  so  !     Why,  he  has  whopped  ))ie  afore  now  !" 

Yes  !  I  likeil  the  Americans  as  I  first  made  acquaintance 
w  ith  them  almost  among  the  backwoods  at  Cincinnati  sixty 


128  WHAT    I   KEME.MBER. 

years  ago ;  and  I  like  tliem  as  I  Lave  since  known  tliera 
better.  For  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  them  ;  far  more 
than  an  Englisliman  living  at  liome  would  be  likely  to  do, 
during  my  many  years'  residence  in  Italy.  The  American 
"  colony,"  to  use  the  common,  though  incorrect  phrase,  is 
large  both  at  Florence  and  in  Rome  ;  of  late  years  fully 
as  large,  I  think,  as  that  from  England.  And  not  only  do 
the  two  bodies  associate  indiscriminately  Avith  each  other 
in  perfect  neighborliness  and  good-fellowsliip,  but'they  do 
so,  forming  one  single  oasis  in  the  midst  of  the  surround- 
ing Continental  life,  in  a  manner  which  makes  one  con- 
stantly feel  how  infinitely  nearer  an  American  is  to  an 
Englishman  in  ideas,  habits,  Avar's,  and  civilization  than 
either  of  them  are  to  any  other  denizen  of  earth's  surface. 

I  was  sorry  when  the  time  came  for  us  to  leave  Cincin- 
nati, though,  as  usual  with  me,  the  prospect  of  the  jour- 
ney, which  we  were  to  make  by  a  different  route  from  that 
by  which  we  had  travelled  westward,  was  a  joy  and  a  con- 
soLation.  My  father  and  I  returned,  leaving  my  mother, 
my  two  sisters,  still  quite  children,  and  my  brother  Henry 
at  Cincinnati.  The  proposed  institution — bazaar,  athenas- 
um,  lecture-hall,  or  whatever  it  was  to  be,  or  to  be  called — 
had  been  determined  on,  and  the  site,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  selected  and  purchased ;  but  nothing  had  yet 
been  done  towards  raising  tlie  building.  Contracts  had 
been  entered  into,  and  my  father  was  on  his  return  to 
London  to  send  out  a  quantity  of  goods  for  the  carrying 
out  of  the  commercial  part  of  the  scheme. 

He  did  so.  But  I  had  no  share  in  or  knowledge  of  the 
operations  undertaken  for  this  purpose,  and  may  therefore 
as  well  relate  here  the  upshot  of  the  ill-fated  enterprise. 
I  learned  subsequently  that  very  large  quantities  of  goods 
were  sent  out  of  kinds  and  qualities  totally  unfitted  for  the 
purpose.  The  building  was  duly  raised,  and  I  have  been 
told  by  Americans  who  had  seen  it  that  it  was  a  handsome 
and  imposing  one.  Uut  the  net  result  was  disaster  and 
mill.  My  father,  having  been  educated  to  be  a  chancery 
barrister,  was  a  good  one.  He  became  a  farmer  with  no 
training  or  knowledge  necessary  for  the  calling,  and  it 
proved  ruinous  to  him.     He  then  embarked  on  this  com- 


VISIT   TO   AMERICA.  129 

mercial  spoculation,  Avhicb,  inasmuch  as  he  was  still  more 
ignorant  of  all  such  matters  than  he  was  even  of  farming, 
turned  out  still  more  entirely  disastrous. 

My  father  and  I,  as  I  have  said,  did  not  return  from  Cin- 
cinnati to  New  York  by  the  same  route  by  which  we  had 
travelled  westward.  We  went  by  the  lakes  and  Niagara, 
visiting,  also,  Trenton  Falls  en  route.  Had  I  written  this 
page  immediately  after  my  journey,  instead  of  sixty  years 
after,  I  might  have  been  justified  in  attempting — and  no 
doubt  should,  in  any  case,  have  attempted — some  descrip- 
tion of  the  great  "  water-privilege,"  which  I  saw  as  it  will 
never  be  seen  again.  Tlie  two  great  cataclysms  which 
have  occurred  since  that  time  have  entirel}'  changed,  and 
in  a  great  measure  spoiled,  the  great  sight.  And  now,  I 
am  told,  this  "  so-called  nineteenth  century"  (as  I  read  the 
other  day  in  the  fervid  discourse  of  some  pessimist  orator) 
intends  before  it  closes  to  utilize  the  lake  as  a  mill-dam 
and  the  falls  as  so  much  "  power." 

I  remember  that  I  enjoyed  Trenton  most.  It  appealed 
much  less,  of  course,  to  the  imagination  and  the  sense  of 
wonder,  but  far  more  to  one's  appreciation  of  the  beau- 
tiful. 

Our  Niagara  visit  was  in  a  great  measure  spoiled  by 
my  father's  illness.  He  was  suffering  from  one  of  his 
worst  sick-hcadachcs.  He  dragged  himself  painfully  to 
the  usual  spot  near  the  hotel  whence  the  fall  is  command- 
ed, antl,  having  looked,  got  back  to  his  bed.  I  had  plenty 
of  hours  at  my  disposal  for  rambling  in  all  directions,  but, 
as  usual  with  me,  had  not  a  coin  of  any  sort  in  my  pocket. 
The  fall  and  its  environs  were  not  as  jealously  locked  and 
gated  and  guarded  as  has  been  the  case  since  ;  but  I  was  as- 
sured that  I  should  be  very  unwise  to  attempt  to  penetrate 
below  and  behind  the  fall  without  a  guide,  and  I  should 
have  been  most  willing  to  em])loy  one  had  I  possessed  the 
means.  IJut  to  lose  the  opj)ortunity  of  enjoj'ing  a  si^ht 
to  which  I  had  so  eagerly  looked  forward  was  out  of  the 
question,  and  I  did  succeed  in  making  my  way  by  the  slip- 
pery and  rather  terrible  path  behind  the  fall,  rewarded  by 
an  effect  of  the  sun  on  the  sheet  of  falling  water  as  perfect 
and  admirable  as  if  it  had  been  ordered  expressly  for  me, 
G* 


130  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

and  none  tlie  worse  for  tlio  enterprise  save  returning  to 
the  inn  as  tlioronghly  drenched  as  if  I  had  been  dragged 
through  tlie  fall!  Little  enough  I  cared  for  that  in  those 
days ! 

I  may  mention  here  one  of  those  singular  coincidences 
which,  though  in  reality  so  frequently  occurring,  are  ob- 
jected to  in  a  novelist's  pages  as  passing  the  bounds  of 
credibility.  Many  years  after  the  date  of  my  visit  to 
Niagara  the  mother  of  my  present  wife  was  there,  and 
saw  from  the  balcony  of  the  hotel  a  boat  with  two  rowers 
in  it,  who  had  incautiously  approached  too  near  the  fall, 
carried  over  it  !  Her  account  of  the  horror  of  the  sight, 
and  of  the  sudden  and  evident  despair  of  the  frantically 
struggling  rowers  was  very  impressive,  and  hardly  less  so 
when  I  heard  it  for  the  second  time  from  an  American 
met  by  chance  in  Italy,  who,  sitting  in  that  same  balcony 
at  that  same  hour,  had  witnessed  the  same  catastrophe  ! 

At  New  York  we  were  again  most  kindly  and  cordially 
received  by  Mr.  Wilkes,  who  gave  my  father  much  advice 
respecting  his  projected  Cincinnati  venture — advice  whol- 
ly, as  I  take  it,  ignored. 

Taught  by  experience,  however,  my  father  did  not  at- 
tempt a  second  steerage  passage.  We  came  back  com- 
fortably enough,  and  had  an  entirely  prosperous  voyage, 
the  result  being  that  my  remembrances  of  it  are  very  far 
less  vivid  than  those  of  my  steerage  experience.  We 
reached  England  in  March,  and  again  took  up  our  abode 
at  Harrow  Weald,  where  I,  with  such  very  imperfect 
means  and  appliances  as  were  at  my  disposition,  was  to 
employ  the  abundant  hours  in  preparing,  in  accordance 
with  my  own  unassisted  lights,  for  the  university. 

Bad,  however,  as  my  father's  circumstances  were  at  this 
time,  and  little  ])leasant  in  any  way  as  was  our  life  in  the 
farmhouse  at  Harrow  Weald,  I  remember  an  excursion 
made  by  him  and  me,  the  only  object  of  which,  I  think, 
could  have  been  amusement.  My  father  had  an  old  friend 
named  Skinner  (no  relative  of  the  vicar  of  my  nncle 
Meetkerke's  parish  of  Julians,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  in 
a  former  chapter),  who  was  the  rector  of  a  parish  near 
Bath.     He  was  a  widower,  living  with  an  only  daughter, 


VISIT  TO   AMERICA.  131 

and  was,  I  remember,  an  enthusiastic  student  of  ancient 
British  history  in  connection  with  the  localities  around 
him.  One  of  the  two  days  we  remained  with  him  was  de- 
voted to  a  visit  to  Cheddar  Cliffs.  Mr.  Skinner  mounted 
us,  and  we  rode  a  partie  carr'ee,  he  and  my  father,  Miss 
Skinner  and  I,  some  twelve  or  fourteen  miles  to  Cheddar. 
She  was  a  pretty,  bright  girl,  and  I  found  her  a  charming 
companion  in  a  scram])le  to  the  top  of  the  cliffs  overlook- 
ino:  the  gorge  through  which  the  road  runs.  We  became, 
indeed,  such  good  friends,  that,  on  our  homeward  ride,  we 
gradually  drew  away  from  our  respective  parents  .and 
reached  home  a  good  half-hour  before  they  did  —  which 
procured  for  us  both  a  scolding  for  knocking  the  horses 
up. 

It  was  rough ish  riding,  too,  as  I  remember,  for  the  road 
was  very  different  from  what  I  found  it  some  months  ago, 
when,  revisiting  Cheddar,  I  saw  on  the  top  of  the  hill  a 
notice  to  bicycle  riders  that  the  descent  is  dangerous  for 
them. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

AT    OXFORD. 

As  the  year  Avorc  on  Avithoiit  any  prospect  of  a  vacancy 
at  New  College,  it  became  necessary  to  decide  what  should 
be  done  as  regards  sending  me  to  the  university.  My 
father  was  very  ill  able  to  support  the  expense  of  this. 
But  I  had  received  from  Winchester  two  exhibitions — all 
that  tlic  college  had  in  its  power  to  bestow  —  and  he 
was  very  imwilling  that  I  should  be  unable  to  avail  my- 
self of  them. 

Concomitantly  with  continued  increase  in  the  frequency 
and  intensity  of  his  headaches,  my  father's  irritability  of 
temper  had  increased  to  a  degree  which  made  him  a  very 
difhcult  person  to  live  with.  For  simple  assent  to  his 
utterances  of  an  argumentative  nature  did  not  satisfy  him ; 
he  would  be  argued  witli.  Yet  argument  produced  irrita- 
bility leading  to  scenes  of  painful  violence,  Avhich  I  had 
reason  to  fear  hastened  the  return  of  his  suffering.  But 
the  greatest  good,  in  his  opinion,  that  could  then  be 
achieved  for  me,  was  that  I  should  have  a  university 
education  ;  and  this  he  was  steadfastly  minded  to  pro- 
cure for  me  at  any  cost  of  pressure  and  privation. 

And  then  the  question  arose,  at  what  college  should  I 
matriculate  ? 

My  father  eventually  selected  Alban  Ilall  —  a  singular 
and  hardly  a  judicious  choice  in  any  case,  but  which  un- 
der the  circumstances,  as  they  subsequently  arose,  proved 
a  disastrous  one.  INFy  father's  financial  position  was  at  the 
time  such  that  it  would  have  seemed  reasonable  that  he 
should  have  been  in  a  great  measure  guided  in  his  choice 
by  the  consideration  of  expense.  But  such  was  not  the 
case.  For  Alban  Hall  was  at  that  time  by  no  means  a 
specially  inexpensive  place  of  academical  residence.  No  ! 
the  ruling  motive  was  to  place  me  under  Wliately,  who 


AT  OXFORD.  133 

bad  about  four  years  previously  been  appointed  by  Lord 
Granville  Principal  of  Alban  Hall.  My  father,  as  I  liave 
mentioned,  was  a  "Liberal,"  and  Whately's  Liberalism. 
was  the  point  in  his  character  by  which  he  was  most 
known  to  the  world  in  general.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
personal  acquaintance,  or  even  contact,  had  ever  existed 
between  my  father  and  Whately.  The  connecting  link  I 
take  to  have  been  AVhately's  friend  Senior,  Whately's 
Liberalism  certainly,  and,  I  think  I  may  say,  my  father's 
also,  would  have  made  excellent  Conservatism  at  the  pres- 
ent day.  But  in  those  days  the  new  principal  of  Alban 
Hall  stood  out  in  strong  contrast  with  the  intellectual 
attitude  and  habits  of  thought  of  Oxford.  And  this  was 
the  leading  motive  of  my  father's  choice. 

I  know  not  how  the  case  may  be  now,  but  in  those  days 
it  was  a  decided  disadvantage  socially  and  academically 
to  belong  to  any  one  of  the  "  halls,"  instead  of  to  a  col- 
lege. But  of  all  this  side  of  Oxford  life  my  father,  who 
had  been  a  New  College  man  in  the  days  when  New  Col- 
lege exercised  its  ancient  privilege  of  presenting  its  mem- 
bers for  their  degree  without  submitting  them  for  any  ex- 
amination in  the  schools,  knew  nothing.  Li  his  day  the 
New  College  man  before  the  vice-chancellor  for  his  degree, 
instead  of  using  the  formula  ])rescribed  for  every  other 
member  of  the  university,  to  the  eifect  that  having  satis- 
fied the  examiners  he  begged  his  degree  {pcto  r/radnni), 
said,  "  Having  satisfied  my  college,  I  demand  my  degree  " 
(posiulo  gradum).  This  has  long  been  voluntarily  aban- 
doned by  New  College,  which  on  the  enactment  of  the 
new  statute  for  examinations,  of  course,  saw  that  the  re- 
tention of  it  necessarily  excluded  them  from  "honors." 
But  in  the  old  day  it  had  inevitably  the  effect  of  causing 
New  College  men  to  live  very  much  in  a  world  of  their 
own. 

Alban  Hall  had  been,  previously  to  Whately's  time,  a 
sort  of  "ril'ngc  for  the  destitute"  intellectually,  or  aca- 
ilmiicaliy  ;  as  were  f(jr  the  most  part  the  other  halls  at 
that  period.  This  rei)roacli  Whately  at  once  set  himself 
to  remove  from  Alban  Hall,  and  had  altogether  removed 
l»y  the  time  T  joined  the  society.     Tf  would  be  dinicnU  to 


134  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

say  what  general  operating  influence  had  brought  togeth- 
er the  score  or  so  of  members  who  then  constituted  that 
society.  They  were  certainly  not  intellectually  superior 
to  the  average  undergraduate  of  the  time.  Neither  were 
they  in  any  wise  inferior  in  general  respectability.  But 
there  was  no  cohesion,  no  general  prevailing  character. 
We  seemed  like  a  collection  of  waifs  thrown  together  by 
as  many  different  sets  of  circumstances  as  there  were  in- 
dividuals. I  suppose  all  had  been  brought  there  by  some 
personal  connection  with,  or  respect  for,  either  Dr.  Whate- 
ly,  or  for  Mr.  Hinds,  the  excellent  vice-principal,  Avho 
subsequently  became  Bishop  of  Norwich.  There  was,  I 
remember,  a  knot  of  some  three  or  four  West  Indians, 
who  formed  some  little  exception  to  what  I  have  said  of  a 
general  absence  of  cohesion. 

The  time  which  I  spent  under  Dr.  Whately's  authority 
and  tuition  led  me  to  form  a  very  exalted  opinion  of  his 
intellectual  capacity,  high  principle,  and  lofty  determina- 
tion to  do  what  he  deemed  to  be  his  duty.  •  But  I  do  not 
think  that  he  was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place. 

His  daughter,  Miss  Jane  Whately,  in  her  excellent  and 
most  interesting  life  of  the  archbishop,  published  some 
twenty  years  ago,  writes: 

"Teaching  was,  indeed,  the  oecupation  most  peculiarly  suited  to  his 
powers  and  tastes,  lie  had  a  reniarlvable  faculty  of  (hawinii;  out  the 
mind  of  the  learner,  by  leading  him  step  by  step,  and  obliging  him  to 
think  for  himself.  lie  used  to  say  that  he  believed  himself  to  be  one  of 
the  few  teachers  who  could  train  a  young  person  of  retentive  memory  for 
words,  without  spoiling  him.  The  temptation  to  the  student  in  such  cases 
is  to  rehearse  by  rote  the  rules  or  facts  he  had  learned,  without  exercis- 
ing his  powers  of  thought ;  while  one  whose  powers  of  recollection  were 
less  perfect  would  be  forced  to  reflect  and  consider  what  was  llkclii  to  be 
written  or  said  on  such  a  point  by  the  writer,  and  thus  to  learn  more  in- 
telligently and  less  mechanically.  The  cure  for  this  tendency  in  young 
persons  who  learned  quickly  by  rote  he  effected  by  asking  them  questions" 
substantially  the  same  as  those  in  the  text-book,  but  which  they  must  an- 
swer in  their  own  words,  making  them  diaw  conclusions  from  axioms 
already  laid  down.  In  this  manner  he  was  able  successfully  to  teach  mathe- 
matics to  many  who  had  been  apparently  unable  to  master  the  first  prin- 
ciples, and  often  to  ground  them  in  the  elements  of  Euclid,  better  than 
Bome  mathematicians  whose  actual  attaiimionts  were  far  beyond  his  own. 
J}oth  in  this  branch  and  in  logic,  as  in  all  other  studies,  he  always  con?- 


AT  OXFORD.  135 

mcnced  analytically  and  ended  synthetically ;  first  drawing  out  the  mind  of 
the  learner,  by  making  him  give  the  substance  of  the  right  answer,  and 
then  requiring  the  exact  technical  form  of  it  in  words." 

This  must  strike  all,  who  remember  AVhately's  teaching, 
as  evidently  true.  But  it  in  no  wise  leads  me  to  modify 
the  opinion  above  expressed  as  to  his  adaptation  for  the 
position  in  whicli  I  knew  him.  The  style  of  teaching  de- 
scribed by  his  biographer,  if  ever  suitable  at  all  for  a  col- 
lege lecture-room,  could  only  be  so  in  the  case  of  a  collec- 
tion of  pupils  far  superior  intellectually  to  those  with 
whom  (with  one  or  two  exceptions,  notably  that  of  Mr. 
"Wall,  whose  subsequent  career  at  Oxford  did  credit  to  his 
Alban  Hall  training)  Dr.  Whately  had  to  deal.  Miss 
Whately  describes  a  teacher  whose  influence  in  tete-d-tSte 
teaching  over  a  clever  pupil  would  be  quite  invaluable. 
But  he  was  always  firing  far  over  the  heads  of  his  hearers  ; 
and  I  do  not  think  that  his  method  was  adapted  to  driv- 
ing, pushing,  hustling  an  idle  and  very  backward  and  un- 
prepared collection  of  youths  through  their  "little-go" 
and  "  pass,"  quod  erat  in  votis.  Most  of  this  necessary 
driving  fell  to  the  share  of  Hinds,  who  was  fitted  for  far 
higher  work,  but  was  patient,  kind,  laborious,  and  con- 
scientious to  the  utmost  degree. 

Miss  Whately's  book,  mainly  by  virtue  of  the  great 
number  of  the  archbishop's  letters  contained  in  it,  suc- 
ceeds in  giving  a  very  just  and  vivid  notion  of  her  father's 
<-liaractir  and  tone  of  mind.  She  is  hardly  justified,  I 
think,  by  facts,  in  speaking  of  the  "  delicacy  of  his  con- 
sideration for  the  feelings  of  others."  A  little  circum- 
stance that  I  well  remember  scarcely  seems  to  indicate  the 
possession  of  any  such  quality.  It  was  about  the  time 
when  the  then  burning  question  of  parliamentary  reform 
was  exercising  the  minds  of  all  men.  A  large  i>arty  of  un- 
dergraduates were  dining  at  Whately's  table — such  invi- 
tations were  usually  given  by  him  in  every  term — and 
Mrs.  Whately,  at  the  head  of  the  long  table,  was  asking 
llie  young  man  who  sat  next  her  what  was  the  genei'al 
opinion  in  the  hall  on  the  Reform  ijuestion,  when  Whate- 
ly, who  at  the  bottom  of  the  table  liad  overheard  her, 
called   out,  "  Why   don't  you   .i^k   what    the  bcdmakers 


136  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

think  ?"  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  opinion  of  the  bed- 
niakcrs  might  have  been  ascertained  "with  an  equal,  or 
perhaps  gi'eater,  degree  of  profit.  But  I  cannot  think 
that  the  priiicij)al  showed  much  "delicacy  of  considera- 
tion "  for  the  feelings  of  his  guests. 

Perhaps  a  degree  of  roughness  akin  to  this,  though 
hardly  altogether  of  the  same  sort,  contributed  to  increase 
that  strong  feeling  of  dislike  for  Whately  which,  outside 
his  own  Oriel,  was  pretty  generally  felt  in  Oxford,  and 
which  was  mainly  caused  by  more  serious  objections  to 
his  political,  and  in  some  degree  religious,  liberalism. 

I  fear  that  I  profited  very  little  by  his  tuition  at  Alban 
Hall,  doubtless  chiefly  from  my  own  fault  and  idleness. 
But  other  causes  contributed  also  to  the  result.  The 
classical  lectures  were  such  as  I  had  left  a  long  way  be- 
hind me.  No  study  on  my  part  was  necessary  to  hold  my 
own  in  the  lecture-room  by  the  side  of  ray  fellows  in  the 
team.  Yet,  of  course,  it  was  easy  for  such  a  teacher  as 
Whately  to  perceive  that  I  was  trusting  to  Winchester 
%vork  rather  than  to  his  instruction.  And  naturally  this 
did  not  please  him.  I  think,  too,  that  he  had  a  prejudice 
against  public  schools  in  general,  and  that  for  some  reason 
or  other  he  disliked  Winchester  in  particular.  I  remem- 
ber his  saying  to  me  once — though  1  totally  forget  on 
what  occasion — "  We  don't  want  any  New-College  ways 
here,  sir  !"  I  told  him  that  I  feared  I  did  not  deserve  the 
compliment  of  being  supposed  capable  of  bringing  any 
such  there.     And  the  reply  failed  to  mollify  him. 

Those  who  are  old  enougli  to  rememl)er  anything  of  the 
social  aspects  of  Oxford  at  that  day,  and,  indeed,  any  who 
have  read  the  excellent  biography  of  Archbishop  Whately 
by  his  daughter,  know  that  he  was  exceedingly  unpopular 
among  "the  dons,"  his  contemporaries.  This  was  due 
partly  to  the  opinions  he  held  on  matters  social,  political, 
and  religious,  partly  to  those  Avhich  i)rejudiced  minds  far 
inferior  to  his  own  supposed  him  to  hold,  but  partly  also 
to  his  own  personal  ways  and  manners.  I  think  I  know, 
and  indeed  I  think  I  knew  Avhen  I  was  his  pupil,  enough 
of  the  fibre  and  calil)re  of  his  mind  to  feel  sure  that  he 
was  greatly  the  intellectual  superior  to  most  of  those  of 


AT  OXFORD.  13  7 

similar  position  around  Lira.  And  I  suppose  that  the 
workl  in  general  has  by  this  time  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  resjiect  of  most  of  those  opinions,  which  were  then 
most  obnoxious  to  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  Whately 
was  right  and  his  adversaries  Avrong.  But  he  was  not  the 
man  to  win  acceptance  for  new  ideas  in  anv  societv.  Tlic 
temper  of  his  mind  was  in  a  high  degree  autocratical.  lie 
was  born  to  be  a  benevolent  and  beneficent  despot.  His 
daughter,  speaking  of  the  painful  experiences  that  awaited 
him  when  he  became  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  says  that "  op- 
position was  painful  to  his  disposition." 

Doubtless  the  })rincipal  of  Alban  Hall,  thoroughly  con- 
genial to  him  as  was  at  that  time  the  social  atmosphere  of 
the  common  room  of  his  own  Oriel,  would  have  felt  him- 
self much  out  of  his  element  in  most  of  the  common  rooms 
of  Oxford.  I  remember  a  dear  old  man.  Dr.  Johnson,  of 
]Magdalen,  who  was  greatly  beloved  by  his  own  society, 
and  a  universal  favorite  with  all  who  knew  him.  lie 
was  a  high,  though  not  altogether  dry,  right  divine  man 
{divino  rightly  spelkd,  be  it  understood,  and  not  with  an 
"  e,"  as  in  jure  de  vhro),  and  used  to  maintain  that  the 
lineal  descendants  of  the  last  Stuarts  were  still  the  right- 
ful sovereigns  of  England.  Sometimes  a  knot  of  young- 
sters would  cluster  around  him,  with,  "  But  now,  Dr. 
Johnson,  do  you  really  and  truly  believe  that  the  present 
Duke  of  Modena  is  your  lawful  sovereign  ?"  "  Well, 
boy,"  the  doctor  would  say  when  thus  pressed,  "  after  din- 
ner T  do^ 

This  was  not  the  sort  of  man  whom  Whately  would 
have  tolerated,  for  though  full  of  wit,  as  I  have  said,  he 
was  utterly  devoid  of  any  tincture  of  humor. 

Those  were  the  days  Avhen  it  used  to  be  said  that  the 
rule  at  Magdalen  respecting  preferment  tenable  together 
with  a  fellowshi|),  was,  "Hold  your  tongue,  and  you  may 
hohl  anything  else." 

It  was  sujiposed,  I  nnienibcr,  at  that  day  that  there 
was  U)  a  certain  special  degn-e  an  antagonism  .and  dislike 
between  him  and  Dr.  Shuttleworth,  the  warden  of  New 
CoUege.  There  was  a  story  current  to  the  effect  that  the 
brusqucrie  of  the  principal  of  Alban  Hall  was  upon  one 


138  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

occasion  exhibited  in  an  offensive  manner  in  the  drawiner- 
room  of  the  Avarden  of  Nen'  College,  when  not  only  men 
but  ladies  were  present.  Whately  had  a  habit  of  sit- 
ting in  all  sorts  of  uncouth  postures  on  his  chair.  He 
"would  balance  himself,  Avhile  nursing  one  leg  over  the 
knee  of  the  other,  on  the  two  hind  legs  of  his  chair,  or 
even  on  one  of  them,  and  was  indulging  in  gymnastics  of 
this  sort  when  the  leg  of  the  chair  suddenly  snapped,  and 
he,  a  large  and  heavy  man,  rolled  on  the  floor.  He  Avas  a 
man  of  far  too  much  real  pith  and  aplomb  to  be  unneces- 
sarily disconcerted  at  such  an  accident.  But  the  story 
ran  that  he  manifested  his  disregard  for  it  by  simply  toss- 
ing the  offending  and  crippled  chair  into  a  corner,  and 
taking  another  as  he  proceeded  with  what  he  was  saying 
without  one  word  of  apology  to  his  hostess. 

If  it  was  true  that  there  was  any  such  special  feeling  of 
antagonism  between  Whately  and  Shuttleworth,  it  was  a 
l^ity;  for  assuredly  there  were  very  few,  if  any,  men  among 
the  heads  of  colleges  of  that  day  better  calculated  by 
power  and  originality  of  mind,  and  in  many  respects  by 
liberality  of  thinking,  to  understand  and  foregather  with 
Whately  than  the  warden  of  New  College. 

Shuttleworth  was,  and  had  the  reputation  of  being,  an 
especially  witty  man.  And  I  consider  Whately  to  have 
been  the  wittiest  man  I  ever  knew,  But  it  is  true  that 
their  wit  was  of  a  very  different  character.  Whately  was 
not  a  man  fitted  to  shine  in  society,  unless  it  were  the  so- 
ciety of  those  ])repared  by  knowledge  of  and  regard  for 
him  to  recognize  his  undisputed  right  to  be  the  acknowl- 
edged leader  of  it.  Shuttleworth  was,  on  the  contrary, 
eminently  calculated  to  contribute  more  than  his  share  to 
the  most  brilliant  social  intercourse.  lie  had,  with  abun- 
dance of  solid  sweetmeat  at  the  bottom  of  the  trifle,  a 
sparkling  store  of  that  froth  of  wit  which  is  most  accepted 
as  the  readiest  and  pleasantest  social  small  change.  Whate- 
ly's  wit  was  not  of  the  kind  which  ever  set  any  "  table  on 
a  roar."  It  Avas  of  that  higher  and  deeper  kind,  Avhich 
consists  in  prompt  perception,  not  of  the  superficial  resem- 
blances in  dissimilar  things,  but  in  the  underlying  resem- 
blances disclosed  only  to  the  eye  capable  of  ai>preciating 


AT  OXFORD.  139 

at  a  glance  the  essential  qualities  and  cliaracteristics  of 
the  matter  in  hand.  I  have  heard  Whately  delieiously 
witty  at  a  logic  or  Euclid  lecture. 

An  admirable  specimen  of  this  highest  description  of  wit 
is  given — among  dozens  of  others  indeed — by  his  daugh- 
ter in  her  biograpliy  of  him,  which  delighted  me  much 
when  I  read  it,  and  which  may  be  cited  because  it  is  very 
brilliant  and  may  be  given  shortly.  It  will  be  found  at 
the  thirty-eightli  page  of  the  first  volume  of  Miss  Whate- 
"ly's  work.  The  archbishop,  writing  of  the  controversy 
respecting  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  says,  "  This  is 
a  case  in  which  men  impose  on  themselves  by  the  fallacy 
of  the  thaumatrope.  On  one  side  are  painted  (to  obviate 
the  absurdity  of  a  pi'obable  law)  the  plain,  earnest,  and  re- 
peated injunctions  to  the  Jews  relative  to  their  Sabbath  ; 
on  the  other  side  (to  obviate  the  consequence  of  our  hav- 
ing to  keep  the  Jewish  Sabbath)  we  have  the  New  Testa- 
ment allusions  to  the  Christian  assemblies  on  the  first  day 
of  the  week.  By  a  repeated  and  rapid  twirl  these  two  im- 
ages are  blended  into  one  picture  in  the  mind.  But  a  steady 
view  will  show  that  they  are  on  opposite  sides  of  the  card." 

I  remember  a  favorite  saying  of  Whately's  to  the  effect 
that  the  difficulty  of  giving  a  good  deiinition  of  anything 
increased  in  proportion  to  the  commonness  of  the  thing  to 
be  defined.  And  he  would  illustrate  his  dictum  by  saying 
"Define  me  a  teacup  !"  A  trial  of  the  experiment  will 
probably  convince  the  exijerimenter  of  the  correctness  of 
Whately's  proposition. 

"Whether  it  may  have  been  that  any  antagonism  be- 
tween Whately  and  Shuttleworth  caused  the  former  to  be 
prejudiced  against  Wiccamical  things  and  men,  or  whether 
the  relationship  of  the  two  feelings  were  vice  vcrsti,  I  can- 
not say.  But  I  certainly  thought,  and  think  still,  that 
I  suffered  in  his  estimation  from  the  fact  that  I  was  a 
Wykehamist.  In  writing  on  educational  matters  in  or 
about  Ih:?!)  (page  79  of  Miss  Whately's  first  volume), 
Whately  says  :  "To  compare  schools  generally  with  cdI- 
leges  generally  may  seem  a  vague  imiuiry,  but  take  the 
most  in  repute;  of  each  —  Ki<>ii,  Westminster,  Harrow, 
etc.,  V.  Oriel,  Brasenose,  Balliol,  Christchurch,  etc.,  etc." 


140  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Now,  I  cannot  but  foci  that  so  singular  an  omission  of 
Winchester  from  so  short  a  list  of  the  schools  "most  in 
repute,"  glaring-ly  in  contradiction  as  it  Avas  with  all  that 
the  Avhole  English  world — even  the  non-academical  world 
— knew  to  be  the  fact,  could  have  been  caused  only  by 
preconceived  and  unreasoning  prejudice.  Of  course  to 
me  the  utterance  above  quoted  comes  only  as  a  confirma- 
tion of  what  the  personal  observation  of  my  undergradu- 
ate davs  led  me  to  feel,  for  I  knew  nothing  of  it  till  I  read. 
Miss  AVhately's  volumes  published  in  1886. 

Yet  I  do  not  doubt  that  I  may  have  occasionally 
"  rubbed  Whately  the  wrong  way,"  as  the  phrase  goes. 
He  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  most  autocratically  minded  man. 
And  we  Wykehamists,  as  the  reader  may  have  perceived 
from  my  Winchester  reminiscences,  were  not  accustomed 
to  be  ruled  autocratically.  We  lived  under  the  empire, 
and  I  might  almost  say,  in  an  atmosphere  of  law,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  individual  will.  It  was  constantly  in 
our  minds  and  on  our  tongues,  that  the  "  infornidtor''^  or 
the  "  hostiarius  "  could  or  could  not  do  this  or  that.  We 
lived  with  the  ever-present  consciousness  that  the  siiprema 
lex  was  not  Avhat  this  master  or  the  other  master,  or  even 
the  warden  might  say,  save  in  so  far  as  it  coincided  with 
the  college  statutes.  And  I  doubt  not  that  Whately  per- 
ceived and  understood  the  inliuence  of  this  habit  of  mind 
in  something  or  other  that  I  might  have  said  or  done. 
It  was  probably  something  of  the  sort  which  led  to  his 
telling  me  that  he  wanted  no  New-College  manners  at 
Alban  Hall. 

My  "  Winchester  manners,"  however,  enabled  me,  I  re- 
member, to  understand  him  when  some  of  his  own  flock 
could  not.  He  would  at  a  Euclid  lecture  say,  "Take  any 
straight  line,"  scrawling,  as  he  said  the  words,  a  line  as 
far  from  straight  as  he  could  draw  it,  to  the  utter  bewil- 
derment of  some  among  his  audience,  who,  I  believe, 
really  thought  that  the  principal  was  a  shocking  bad 
draughtsman,  while  the  despised  Wykehamist  perfectly 
understood  that  his  object  was  to  show  that  the  process 
of  reasoning  to  be  illustrated  in  no  wise  deijended  on  ac- 
curacy of  lines  or  angles. 


AT   OXFORD.  141 

There  is  anotber  passage  in  one  of  the  letters  published 
by  his  biographer  which  illustrates  Wliateh-'s  aversion 
to  all  Wiccamical  men  and  things,  and  at  the  same  time 
his  litter  ignorance  of  them.  "  It  is  commonly  said  at 
Oxford,"  he  writes,  "at  least  it  used  to  be,  that  it  was 
next  to  impossible  to  make  a  Wykehamist  believe  that  any 
examination  could  be  harder  than  that  which  the  candi- 
dates for  Kew  College  undergo."  My  reader  has  already 
been  told  in  some  degree  what  that  examination  was, 
and  the  nature  of  it.  It  was  a  real  and  serious  examina- 
tion, whereas  that  of  candidates  for  admission  to  Winches- 
ter College  was  a  mere  form :  and  it  was  certainly  a 
searching  examination  into  the  thoroughness  with  which 
schoolboys  had  done  their  schoolboy  work.  But  the  sup- 
position that  any  New -College  man  ever  imagined  his 
examination  in  election  chamber  to  be  of  equal  difficulty 
with  the  subsequent  work  at  the  university,  or  with  that  in 
the  schools  for  honors,  is  an  absolute  proof  that  the  per- 
son so  supposing  never  knew  anything  about  them,  or  had 
come  much  into  contact  with  them. 

I  have  said  that  Whately's  reputation  for  a  very  pro- 
nounced Liberalism,  certainly  at  that  time  unparalleled 
among  his  brother  heads  of  houses  at  Oxford,  liad  been 
ray  father's  reason  for  placing  me  at  Alban  Hall.  And 
all  that  reached  the  undergraduate  world  in  connection 
with  him  was  of  a  nature  to  lead  the  academic  mind  to 
regard  him  as  a  phenomenon  of  Radicalism.  And  it  is  cu- 
rious to  recall  such  impressions,  wliile  reading  at  the  jires- 
cnt  day  such  a  passage  as  the  f(»ll(»\ving  (''  Life  of  Whate- 
ly,"  vol.  i.  p.  302).  The  archbishop  is  writing  about  the 
schemes  then  in  agitation  for  the  application  of  a  portion 
of  the  revenues  of  the  Irish  Church  to  the  purposes  of 
national  eilucation.  'i'lu-  italics  in  the  following  transcrip- 
tion are  mine. 

"  It  is  concluded,  first,  that  in  parishes  where  there  is  a 
very  small,  or  no  Protestant  jiopulation,  the  revenues  of 
the  Cliurcli  will  be  either  wholly,  or  in  ]»art,  as  the  case 
may  bo,  transferred  to  the  education  board,  as  the  incum- 
bents drop,  their  life-interests  being  reserved  ;  secondly, 
that  in  the  event  of  an  increase  of  the  Protestant  jxtpula- 


142  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

tion,  such  portion  of  the  funds  thus  alienated  as  may  be 
tliought  requisite  shall  be  drawn  from  the  education  board, 
and  restored  to  the  original  purpose  ;  thirdly,  that  in  the 
cwut  of  a  further  diminution  of  the  Protestants,  a  further 
]»orlion  shall  be  withdrawn  from  the  Church,  and  apjdied 
to  the  purpose  of  general  education.  This  last  supposition 
is  merely  conjectural,  but  is  so  strictly  the  converse  of  the 
preceding,  that  every  one  at  once  concludes,  and  must 
conclude  by  parity  of  reasoning,  that  it  must  be  contem- 
plated. Now  it  will  not  be  supposed  by  any  one,  who 
knows  much  of  the  state  of  Ireland,  that  we  contemplate 
as  probable  any  such  increase  of  the  Protestant  popula- 
tion as  to  call  for  the  restoration  of  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  alienated  funds.  In  a  few  places,  perhaps,  attempts 
may  be  made,  I  fear  with  disastrous  results,  by  some  zeal- 
ous Protestant  landlords  to  increase,  with  this  view,  the 
proportion  of  Protestants  on  their  estates  ;  but  on  the 
Avhole  we  neither  liope  nor  fear  any  such  result.  What 
alarms  us  is,  the  holding  out  the  principle  of  such  a  sys- 
tem as  the  apportioning  the  revenues  of  the  Church  and 
of  the  education  board  to  the  varying  proportions  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  population  to  the  Protestant;  and  again, 
the  principle  of  making  the  funds  for  national  education 
contingent  upon  the  death  of  incumbents.  The  natural 
effect  of  the  latter  of  these  provisions  must  be  to  place ' 
the  clergy  so  circumstanced  in  a  most  invidious,  and  in 
this  country  a  most  dangerous  situation.  N'o  one  who 
knows  anything  of  Ireland  looidd  like  to  reside  here  sur- 
rounded hy  his  heirs,  on  whom  his  income  was  to  devolve 
at  his  death.  And  such  icould  he  very  much  the  case  xcitli 
an  incumbent,  who  was  regarded  as  standing  between  the 
nation  'and  the  national  benefit,  viz.,  of  provision  for  the 
education  of  their  children.  TJien  in  respect  of  the  other 
point,  every  Protestant  who  might  come  to  settle,  or  remain 
settled  in  any  ]K(rish,  tooidd  be  regarded  as  tending  towards 
the  withdrawing  or  vnthholding,  as  the  case  migltt  be,  of 
the  funds  <f  the  national  education,  and  diverting  them 
to  the  use  of  an  heretical  establishment. 

"  The  most  harassing  jxrsecutions,  the  most  ferocious 
oxdrages,   the    most  systematic  murders,  ivoald   in   consc- 


AT  OXl'ORD.  143 

qiience  be  increased  fourfold.  Bitter  as  religious  animosi- 
ties have  hitherto  been  in  this  vretched  coimtry,  it  icoidd 
be  to  most  jjersons  astonishi)i(j  that  they  cotdd  be  so  much 
augmented,  as  I  have  no  doubt  they  tcould  be,  by  this  fatal 
experiment.  When  instead  of  mere  vague  jealousy,  revenge 
and  party  spirit,  to  prompt  to  crime  and  violence,  there  was 
also  held  out  a  distinct  pecuniary  nationcd  benefit  in  the 
extermination  of  Protestants,  it  tcould  be  in  fact  a  2>}'ice  set 
on  their  Jieads,  and  they  icoidd  be  hunted  doicn  like  wolves. 
.  .  .  Better,  far  better,  Avould  it  be  to  confiscate  at  once 
and  forever  all  the  endowments  held  by  the  clergy,  and 
leave  them  to  be  supported  by  voluntary  contribution,  or 
by  manual  labor.  However  impoverished,  they  and  their 
congregatioiis  would  at  least  have  security  for  their  lives.''^ 

"  To  seek  to  pacify  Ireland^''  he  writes  a  little  further 
on,  "  by  compliance  and  favor  shown  to  its  disturbers  would 
be  even  worse  than  the  siqjerstitioits  2)rocedi(re  of  our  fore- 
fathers u'ith  their  tceajxjn  salve,  who  left  the  wound  to  itself 
and  ap)ptlied  their  unguents  to  the  sioord ichich  had  inflicted 
it.'' 

AVriting  to  his  friend  Senior  on  Parliamentary  Reform, 
he  says  that  a  system  of  tcn-]iound  qualification  "  could 
not  last,  but  must  go  on  to  universal  suffrage."  Ilis  own 
plan  would  be  universal  suifrage  with  a  ])lurality  of  votes 
to  owners  of  property  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  it, 
and  a  system  of  election  by  degrees — parishes,  e.  g.,  to  elect 
an  elector.  "Some  may,"  ho  concludes,  "perhaps  think 
at  the  first  glance  that  my  reform  is  very  democratical. 
I  think  that  a  more  attentive  mind  will  show  that  it  is 
calculated  to  ])revent  in  the  most  effectual  way  the  inroads 
of  excessive  democracy.  I  can  at  least  say  that  no  one 
can  dread  more  than  myself  a  democratical  government, 
chietly  because  I  am  convinced  it  is  the  more  warlike." 

Such  wore  the  utterances  of  an  advanced  Liberal  in  the 
first  lialf  of  this  century.  Was  I  far  wrong  in  saying 
tliat  Whately's  Liljeralism  would  have  math'  \  cry  good 
mofU'rii  Conservatism  ? 

'I'herc  was  a  story  current,  I  renu'mlxT,  not  long  after 
Whately's  accejitance  f»f  the  see  of  Dul^lin,  which,  as  1 
do  not  think   it   \\\\<  Ikcm   IoM  in  piint,  and  as  it  is  very 


144  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

significant,  I  may  tell  here — observing  that  all  I  know  is, 
that  tlie  story  teas  current. 

It  was  at  the  time  Avhen  one  of  the  great  transatlantic 
passenger  ships  had  been  destroyed  by  fire  with  the  loss 
of  many  lives.  One  of  those  saved  was  a  Dublin  clergy- 
man of  the  Low-Church  school  of  divinity,  who,  returning 
to  Dublin,  and  finding  himself  the  hero  of  many  tea-tables, 
was  wont  to  moralize  down  the  groat  event  of  his  life  after 
the  fashion  of  those  who  will  have  it,  qiiand  mtme,  that 
the  tower  of  Siloam  did  fall  because  of  the  wickedness  of 
those  whom  it  crushed.  And  one  da}^  at  one  of  those 
levees  of  which  Miss  Whately  speaks,  he  was  improving 
his  usual  theme,  the  centre  of  a  knot  gathered  around  him, 
when  the  archbishop  strolled  up  to  the  group,  according 

to  his  fashion,  and  having  heard,  said :  "  Yes,  truly  Mr. , 

a  most  remarkable  experience  !  But  I  think  I  can  cap  it" 
(a  favorite  phrase  of  AVhately's,  who  Avas  fond  of  the 
amusement  of  capping  verses).  "  It  is  little  more  than  a 
month  ago  that  I  crossed  from  Holyhead  to  Kingston,  and 
by  God's  mercy  the  vessel  never  caugJit  Jlre  at  allV 

I  cannot  bring  to  an  end  my  reminiscences  relating  to 
so  remarkable  a  man  as  Whately  without  relating  a  story, 
which  he  told  me,  as  having  been  told  him  by  his  old  and 
highly  valued  friend  and  protege^  Blanco  White,  once  so 
well  known  a  figure  among  all  the  Oriel  set  of  that  period. 
The  story  was  introduced,  I  remember,  as  an  illustration 
of  a  favorite  (and  doubtless  correct)  theory  of  Whately's 
to  the  effect  that  the  popular  English  "  hocus  pocus,"  as 
applied  to  any  sleight-of-hand  dece))tion,  is  simply  a  de- 
risory corruption  of  the  "/toe  est  corpus''''  used  in  the  Ro- 
mish liturf^ical  formula  for  the  consecration  of  the  euclia- 
ristic  elements.  It  may  be  that  the  story  in  question  has 
been  told  in  print  before  now,  but  I  have  never  met  with  it. 

"A  priest,"  said  Blanco  White,  "was  for  some  heinous 
crime  condemned  to  capital  punishment  at  Seville.  But 
of  course  before  he  could  be  delivered  over  to  the  secular 
arm  for  the  execution  of  the  sentence,  a  ceremonial  degra- 
dation from  his  sacerdotal  character  had  to  be  performed. 
And  this  was  to  be  done  at  the  ])lace  appointed  for  his 
execution  immediately  l>efore  that  was  proceeded  to ;  and 


AT   OXFORD.  Ii5 

for  the  greater  efficacy  of  the  terrible  example  to  be  in- 
culcated on  the  people,  the  market-day  at  Seville  had  been 
chosen  for  the  purpose. 

"  The  criminal  priest  accordingly,  as  ho  was  led  to  the 
place  of  execution,  Avas  still  to  all  effects  and  purposes  a 
priest,  with  all  the  tremendous  powers  inherent  in  that 
character,  of  which  nothing  save  formal  ecclesiastical  deg- 
radation could  deprive  him.  Now  it  so  happened,  or  per- 
haps was  purposely  arranged,  that  the  way  from  the  prison 
to  the  place  of  execution  lay  through  tlie  market-place, 
where  all  the  provisions  of  all  sorts  for  the  Sevillians  for 
that  day  were  exposed.  And  as  the  yet  undegradcd,  and 
it  must  be  feared  unrepentant,  priest  passed  among  all  the 
vai'ious  displays  of  food  tlms  spread  out  before  him,  the 
devil,  seizing  an  opportunity  rarely  to  be  matched,  entered 
into  the  unhappy  priest's  mind,  and  prompted  him  to  deal 
one  last  malicious  and  sacrih\gious  blow  at  the  population 
about  to  witness  his  miserable  end.  Suddenly,  in  the 
mid-market,  he  stretched  out  his  arms,  and  pronounced 
with  a  loud  voice  the  uncancellablc  sacramental  words, 
'  Hoc  KST  coKPL's  I'  And  all  the  contents  of  that  vast 
market  were  instantaneously  transubstantiated  !  All  the 
food  in  Seville  was  forthwith  unavailable  for  any  baser 
than  eucharistic  purposes,  and  Seville  had  to  observe  the 
vindictive  priest's  last  day  on  earth  as  a  very  rigorous  fast- 
day!" 

Whet])er  IJlanco  White  told  this  as  absolutely  having 
occurreil  within  his  own  knowledge,  or  only  as  a  Seville 
legend,  I  do  not  know,  but  in  any  case  the  story  is  a  good 
one. 

I  have  said  that  when  I  entered  Alban  Hall  I  was  not 
in  a  position  to  obtain  mut-h  ])r()lit  from  tlie  classical  lec- 
tures, the  main  object  of  whieh  was  to  drive  those  who 
attended  them  through  tlie  examination  for  tlie  "little 
go."  I  was  better  able  to  pass  that  examination  when  I 
first  went  to  Oxford  than  wiien  the  time  came  for  my 
doing  so.  IJnt  the  examination  in  question  rei|uirc'd  that 
thf  candidate  for  passing  sliould  lake  up  eitlier  logic  or 
Euclid  (four  books  only,  as  I  remember),  and  of  neither 
of  these  did  I  know  anvthiii'-r-  -^'"I  tli«i<'  tlie  Alban  Hall 
7 


14G  WUAT  I   PvEMEMBER. 

lectures  profited  me.  TIic  admirably  lucid  logic  lectures 
of  both  the  principal  and  vice-principal,  to  my  surprise, 
soon  rendered  the  rationale  of  the  science  perfectly  com- 
prehensible to  me,  and  even  Aldrich  became  interesting. 
I  selected  logic  for  my  "  little  go,"  and  Whately  made 
me  abundantly  able  to  satisfy  the  examiners. 

But,  as  I  said  a  few  pages  back,  my  membership  of  Al- 
ban  Hall  was,  for  more  reasons  than  those  Avhich  have 
been  already  given,  disastrous  to  me,  and  the  disaster 
came  about  in  this  wise. 

Whately  was,  rightly  and  judiciously  enough,  very  par- 
ticular in  requiring  that  his  men  should  return  after  vaca- 
tion punctually  on  the  day  appointed  for  meeting.  Now, 
unfortunately,  my  father  on  one  occasion  detained  me  un- 
til the  following  da3^  What  the  cause  may  have  been 
I  entirely  forget,  but  remember  perfectly  well  that  it  was 
in  no  way  connected  with  any  plans  or  wishes  of  mine.  I 
returned  a  day  late,  and  the  penalty  which  Whately  had 
enacted  for  this  laches  was  the  payment  of  a  certain  sum 
to  his  servant  —  the  porter,  buttery -man,  and  factotum 
at  the  hall.  What  the  amount  of  this  penalty  was,  and 
■whether  it  were  large  or  small,  I  have  entirely  forgotten, 
if  I  ever  kncAV,  for  the  whole  matter  in  dispute  passed  be- 
tween my  father  and  Whatcl}^  The  former  maintained, 
whether  riglitly  or  wrongly  I  have  not  the  means  of  know- 
ing, that  the  latter  acted  ultra  vires  in  making  any  such 
motic propria  edict.  There  was  no  likelihood  that  Whate- 
ly would  yield  in  the  matter — indeed  it  would  have  been 
out  of  the  question  that  he  should  have  done  so.  My  fa- 
ther had  quite  as  little  of  yielding  in  his  nature,  nnd  kicked 
against  the  pricks  determinedly.  The  result  was  that  I 
was  one  morning  summoned  to  the  presence  of  the  princi- 
pal, and  told  to  take  my  name  off  the  books  !  My  father 
Avas  at  first  disposed  to  forbid  me  to  do  so,  but  the  result  of 
refusal  would  have  been  expulsion,  which  Avould  have  en- 
tailed ruinous  consequences,  much  worse  than  the  already 
sufficiently  injurious  results  of  being  compelled  to  quit  the 
hall.  I  should  immediately  have  lost  the  two  valuable 
exhibitions  whicli  I  held  from  Winchester,  besides  incur- 
ring the  very  damning  stigma  that  through  life  attaches 


AT   OXFORD.  147 

to  a  man  wbo  lias  been  expelled.  Eventually  I  took  my 
name  off  the  books  under  menace  of  expulsion  if  I  did  not. 

The  ease  attracted  a  good  deal  of  attention  in  the  uni- 
versity at  the  time,  and  I  think  the  general  feeling  among 
the  heads  of  colleges  was  that  Whately  was  wrong.  At 
all  events,  Avithout  going  into  the  question  as  between  my 
father  and  him,  it  was  emphatically  a  case  of  Delirant 
regr^s,  jylectuntur  Achivi.  From  beginning  to  end  the 
whole  matter  passed  over  my  head.  I  had  neither  fault 
nor  option  in  the  matter.  And  Whately  knew  perfectly 
well  how  very  great  was  the  injury  he  was  inflicting  on 
me.  It  was  nearly  impossible  to  get  admission,  under  the 
circumstances,  to  any  college.  The  great  majority  of 
them  could  not  possibly,  even  if  any  one  of  them  had 
wished  to  do  so,  receive  a  man  at  a  minute's  notice,  from 
absolute  want  of  room,  and  the  wrong  that  would  have 
been  done  to  others  who  were  waiting  for  admission.  But 
it  would  have  been  entirely  contrary  to  the  rules  and  prac- 
tice of  almost,  if  not  quite,  every  one  of  them  to  receive 
a  man  compelled  to  leave  another  college,  even  Avith  a 
formal  bene  decessit.  And  the  interval  of  a  term  (or  even 
of  a  day,  I  take  it  in  strictness)  would  have  necessarily  in- 
volved the  forfeiture  of  ni}^  exhibitions.  All  which  Whate- 
ly also  knew;  but  all  of  Avhich,  as  he  might  have  fairly 
answered,  my  father  knew  also  ! 

Eventually  I  was  received  at  IMagdalcn  Hall,  which  has 
since  tliat  day  become  Hertford  College,  of  which  Dr. 
Macln-idc  was  then  princi])al.  Dr.  IMacbride  was  one  of 
the  kindliest  and  best  men  in  llie  world,  and  he  Avas  one  of 
those  Avho  most  strongly  felt  tliat  I  Avas  being  very  hardly 
used.  It  Avas  with  dilliculty  that  it  could  be  managed 
that  I  .should  be  ri-ceivod  into  hi.s  society  at  a  day's  notice; 
but,  looking  to  the  urgency  as  Avell  as  to  the  other  circum- 
stances of  tlie  case,  it  was  managed  somchoAv,  and  I  be- 
came a  member  of  Magdalen  Hall. 

J  Jut  the  mischief  done  to  my  university  career  aams  fatal ! 
Magdalen  Hall  Avas  at  lliat  tinu-  a  general  refuge  for  the 
destitute!  Dr.  Macbridi-,  well  known  for  his  active  be- 
nevolence an<l  beneticenee  in  various  sjthercs  of  Avcll-doing 
on  tlie  outside  of  his  academical  character,  was  liardly  avcII 


148  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

adapted  for  the  position  he  held  in  the  university.  An}'^- 
thing  of  the  nature  of  punishment  seemed  impossible  to 
the  gentleness  of  his  character;  and  I  fancy  he  held  theo- 
retically that  it  was  desirable  that  a  place  such  as  his  hall 
should  exist  in  the  university  to  serve  as  a  refuge  for  those 
who,  "without  being  black  sheep,  were,  for  a  variety  of  rea- 
sons, pushed  aside  from  the  beaten  tracks  of  the  academi- 
cal career. 

I  made  very  little  acquaintance  with  the  men  there  ;  but 
I  do  not  think  there  were  many,  though  no  doubt  some, 
black  sheep  among  them.  There  was  another  hall  in  the 
university  at  that  time  famous  for  the  "  fastness  "  of  its 
inmates.  But  the  "  shadiness  "  of  Magdalen  Hall  was  of 
a  different  kind.  There  were  many  middle-aged  men 
there  —  ci-devant  officers  in  the  army,  who  had  quitted 
their  profession  with  the  intention  of  entering  the  Church  ; 
schoolmasters,  who,  having  begun  their  career  in  some  ca- 
pacity ^\■hich  did  not  require  a  degree,  were  at  a  later  day 
anxious  to  obtain  one  in  order  to  better  themselves.  In 
general,  the  object  of  all  there  was  not  education  or  any 
other  object  save  simply  a  degree  needed  for  some  social 
or  cconojnical  purpose.  "  Honors  "  were,  of  course,  about 
as  much  aspired  to  as  bishoprics !  And  it  was  the  busi- 
ness of  Mr.  Jacobson  —  the  gentle,  kindly,  patient,  and 
long-suffering  vice -principal  —  to  secure  "a  pass"  for  as 
many  of  his  heterogeneous  flock  as  possible. 

Of  discipline  there  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  been 
any.  When  other  men  of  the  kick-over-the-traces  sort 
told  their  stories  of  various  surreptitious  rneans  of  enter- 
ing college  at  all  sorts  of  hours,  INIagdalen  Hall  men  used 
to  say  that  their  plan  was  to  ring  at  the  gate  and  have  it 
opened  for  them  !  I  remember  upon  one  occasion,  when  I 
had  shown  myself  in  chapel  only  on  the  Sunday  morning 
during  an  entire  week,  the  vice-principal  mildly  remaiked, 
"  You  have"  reduced  it  to  a  mininuini,  Mr.  TroUope  !"  I 
suppose  that  in  classical  attainments  I  was  much  superior 
to  any  man  in  the  place.  There  were  many,  it  is  true, 
who  were  never  seen  at  lecture  at  all  —  not,  probably, 
from  idleness,  but  because  they  were  obtaining  from  a 
private  tutor  a  course  of  cramming  more  desperately  en- 


AT   OXFORD.  149 

ergetic  than  even  kindly,  patient  Jacobson's  elementary 
lectures  could  supply.  For  me  the  res  cmgusta  doni  for- 
bade all  idea  of  employing  a  private  tutor.  But  as  for  a 
"pass"  degree,  I  was  just  as  capable  of  taking  it  when  I 
left  Winchester  (with  the  exception  of  logic,  and  what 
was  called  "  divinity  ")  as  when  I  did  take  it ;  and  as  re- 
gards logic,  I  was  sufficiently  capable  when  I  left  Whatc- 
ly's  hands.  If  my  "  divinity  "  examination  had  consisted 
of  as  searching  an  inquiry  into  my  knov/ledge  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  Old  Testament  as  was  required  from  many 
men,  I  should  infallibly  have  been  "  plucked."  But,  as  it 
chanced,  it  consisted  solely  of  construing  two  verses  of 
the  Xew  Testament.  I  remember  that  the  examiner  had 
been  hammering  away  at  the  man  next  before  me  for  an 
inordinate  time,  and  as  I  construed  my  Greek  Testament 
glibly  enough  he  was  glad  to  make  np  for  lost  time. 

As  for  Jacobson's  lectures,  they  were  absolutely  useless 
to  me,  and  he  never  in  the  slightest  degree  pressed  me  to 
attend  them.  I  remember,  however,  that  he  desired  an 
interview  with  me  on  the  morning  I  was  to  go  into  the 
schools,  for  the  purpose  of  testing  in  some  degree  the 
probability  of  ray  passing.  And  it  is  a  singular  circum- 
stance that — Horace  having  been  one  of  the  books  I  was 
taking  up  —  he  put  me  on,  as  a  trial,  at  the  very  passage 
selected  for  the  same  purpose  by  the  examiner  in  the 
schools  an  hour  or  two  later !  Jacobson  found  me  able 
enough  to  deal  with  the  passage  he  selected.  But  had  it 
been  otherwise  he  would  have  secured  my  passing — as  far 
as  Horace  was  concerned — despite  any  amount  of  igno- 
rance of  the  author,  if  only  I  had  the  wit  to  remember 
his  cramming  for  an  hour  or  two. 

Eventually,  though  I  had  in  no  wise  aimed  at  anything 
of  the  sort,  a  third  class  Avas  awarded  to  me — wholly,  as 
I  was  given  to  understand,  on  account  of  my  Latin  writ- 
ing. The  examiners  had  given  —  hardly  judiciously  —  so 
stiff  a  passage  from  one  of  the  homilies  to  be  translated 
into  Latin  tliat  the  majority  of  the  men  could  not  under- 
stand the  English;  which,  to  a  certain  extent,  interfered 
with  their  translation  of  it  into  another  language.  They 
were  "pass  men"!     With  the  candidates  for  honors  it 


150  WHAT   I   KEMEMBER. 

would  doubtless  have  been  otherwise.  But  I  did  under- 
stand it,  and  I  took  it  into  my  head  to  translate  it  twice — 
once  into  Ciceronian  and  once  into  Sallustian  Latin.  And 
this  was  rewarded  by  a  third  class.     Valeat  quantum! 

And  thus  ended  m}^  academical  career  in  a  comparative 
failure,  the  conclusion  of  which  seemed  to  have  been  rather 
a  foregone  one.  I  had  no  private  tutor,  and,  Avith  the  ex- 
ception of  Whately's  logic  lectures,  no  college  tuition  of 
any  value  to  me  at  all.  And  in  addition  to  all  this  I  was 
pulled  up  by  the  roots  and  transplanted  in  the  middle  of 
my  career.  No  doubt  I  was  idle,  and  might  have  done 
better.  I  read  a  good  deal,  but  it  Avas  v.'hat  I  chose  to 
read,  and  not  what  I  ought  to  have  read  with  a  vicAV  to 
the  schools.  I  had  no  very  unacadcmical  pursuits  save 
one.  I  used  occasionally  to  hire  with  a  friend  a  gig  with 
a  fast  horse,  drive  out  to  Witney,  dine  there,  wait  till  the 
up-mail  came  through,  and  then  run  back  to  Oxford,  tor- 
menting the  coachman  and  his  tenm  by  continually  run- 
ning by  him,  letting  him  pass  me,  and  then  da  capo.  But 
these  escapades  Avere  rare. 

A  great  deal  more  wine,  or  what  was  supposed  to  be 
such,  was  drunk  at  Oxford  in  those  days  than  was  desira- 
ble, or  than,  as  I  take  it,  is  the  case  now.  But  I  never 
was  much  of  a  wine-drinker.  I  think  I  have  been  drunk 
twice  in  my  life,  but  not  oftcner.  Very  little  credit,  how- 
ever, is  due  to  me  for  my  moderation,  from  the  fact,  which 
I  do  not  think  I  ever  met  with  in  the  case  of  any  other 
individual,  that  the  headache  which  to  most  others  comes 
the  next  morning  as  the  penalty  of  excess,  always  used  to 
come  to  me,  if  I  at  all  exceeded,  seance  tenante,  and  al- 
most immediately.  Nor  did  wine  ever  pleasurably  raise 
my  spirits,  nor  did  my  palate  care  for  it.  To  the  present 
day,  as  a  simple  question  of  goiirmandise,  I  would  rather 
drink  a  glass  of  lemonade  than  any  champagne  that  was 
ever  grown — lemonade,  by-the-bye,  not  such  liquid  as  goes 
by  that  name  in  this  country,  but  lemonade  made  with 
lemons  fresh  and  fragrant  from  the  tree.  Under  these 
circumstances  I  can  make  small  claim  to  any  moral  virtue 
for  my  sobriety. 

I  used  to  be  a  good  deal  upon  the  water,  either  alone  or 


AT  OXFORD.  151 

accompanied  by  a  single  friend  with  a  pair  of  sculls.  But 
I  was  a  great  walker,  and  cultivated  in  those  days,  and, 
indeed,  during  most  of  the  many  years  that  have  passed 
since,  a  considerable  turn  of  speed.  In  those  days  Captain 
Barclay  Avas  called  the  champion  pedestrian  of  England, 
and  had  walked  six  miles  within  the  hour.  I  hear  people 
talk  of  eight  and  even  nine  miles  having  been  done  within 
the  hour,  but  I  absolutely  refuse  to  believe  the  statement. 
I  dare  say  that  the  ground  may  have  been  covered,  but 
not  at  a  fair  tcalk — at  what  used  to  be  called,  and  perhaps 
is  called  still,  a  toe-and-heel  walk,  i.  e.,  a  walk  in  perform- 
ing which  one  foot  must  touch  the  ground  before  the 
other  leaves  it.  I  tried  very  hard  to  match  Captain  Bar- 
clay's feat,  but  my  xitmost  endeavors  never  achieved  more 
than  five  miles  and  three  quarters — I  could  never  do  more ; 
and,  of  course,  tliat  last  quarter  of  a  mile  just  made  all  the 
difference  between  a  first-rate  and  a  second-rate  walker. 
The  live  and  three  quarters  I  have  often  done  on  the  Ab- 
ingdon Road,  milestone  to  milestone.  And  at  the  present 
day  I  should  be  happy  to  walk  a  match  with  any  gentle- 
man born  in  1810. 

The  longest  day's  walk  I  ever  did  was  forty-seven  miles, 
but  I  carried  a  very  heavy  knapsack,  making,  I  take  it, 
that  distance  fully  equal  to  sixty  miles  without  one.  How 
well  I  remember  walking,  one  fair,  frosty  morning,  from 
"Winchester  to  Alresford,  seven  miles,  before  breakfast.  I 
asked  at  the  inn  at  which  I  breakfasted  for  cold  meat. 
They  l>rought  me  an  uncut  loin  of  small  Southdown  mut- 
ton, of  which  I  ate  the  whole.  And  I  can  sec  now  the 
glance  of  that  waiter's  eye,  accusing  me,  as  plainly  as  if 
lie  had  spoken  the  words,  of  pocketing  his  master's  provi- 
sions !  J'Jhtu!  fufffice.<i,  Pusthume,  Posthunic,  labuntnr 
aniii,  and  I  never  shall  again  cat  a  loin  of  mutton  at  one 
sitting  !  i)artly,  though,  because  scientific  breeding  has  ex- 
terminated the  good  old  Southdown  million. 

One  other  reminiscence  occurs  to  me  in  connection  with 
the  subject  of  walking.  AVhile  I  was  living  with  my  ])ar- 
cnts  at  Harrow,  my  mother's  brother,  ^Ir.  Henry  Milton, 
was  living  with  his  family  at  Fulhani.  And  one  Sunday 
morning  I  walked  from  Harrow  to  Fulliam  before  break- 


152  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

fast  on  a  visit  to  hira.  As  may  be  supposed,  I  was  abun- 
dantly ready  to  do  ample  justice  to  tlie  very  solid  and  varied 
breakfast  placed  before  me,  but,  after  having  done  so,  was 
hardly  equally  ready  to  accompany  my  uncle's  family  to 
Fulham  Church  to  hear  the  Bishop  of  London  preach. 
This,  however,  it  behooved  me  to  do,  not  without  great 
misgiving  as  to  the  effect  that  the  bishop's  sermon  might 
have  on  me  after  my  twelve  miles'  walk  and  very  copious 
breakfast — especially  as  my  uncle's  pew  Avas  exactly  in 
front  and  in  the  vicinity  of  the  pulpit !  So,  minded  to  do 
my  best  under  the  difficult  circumstances,  I  stood  up  dur- 
ing the  sermon.  All  in  vain  !  Nature  too  peremptorily 
bade  me  sleep,  I  slept,  with  the  result  of  executing  an 
uninterrupted  series  of  profound  bows  to  the  preacher,  the 
suddenness  and  jerky  nature  of  which  evidently  betokened 
the  entirety  of  my  agreement  with  his  arguments.  I  feared 
the  reproaches,  Avhich  I  doubted  not  awaited  me  on  my 
way  home.  But  my  uncle  contented  himself  with  saying, 
"  AVhen  you  go  to  sleep  during  a  sermon,  Tom,  never  stand 
up  to  do  it !" 

To  sum  up  the  story  of  my  certainly  unsuccessful  but 
not  entirely  profitless  life  at  Oxford,  I  may  say  that  I  was 
not  altogether  an  idle  man,  nor  ever  in  any  degree  a  sharer 
in  any  of  the  "faster"  phases  of  academical,  life.  I  v/as 
always  a  reader.  But  what  academical  good  could  come 
to  a  man  who  was  reading  "The  Diversions  of  Purley," 
or  Plot's  "  Oxfordshire,"  or  Burton's  "Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly," or  Brown's  "  Vulgar  Errors,*'  when  he  ought  to  have 
been  reading  Aristotle's  "  Ethics  "  ?  Among  other  reminis- 
cences of  the  sort,  my  diary  accuses  me,  for  instance,  for 
having  taken  from  the  library  of  Magdalen  Hall  (and  read  !) 
avolume  called  "Gaffarel's  Curiosities."  I  suppose  no  other 
living  man  has  read  it !  The  work  contains  among  other 
"  curiosities,"  a  chapter  "  of  incredible  nonsense,"  as  my 
diary  calls  it,  on  the  construction  and  proper  use  of  Talis- 
mans ! 

Alas,  no  "honors"  were  granted  for  proficiency  in  such 
studies ! 


CHAPTER  X. 

OLD    DIARIES. 

Before  quitting  a  phase  of  my  life  which  many,  if  not 
most,  old  men  are  wont  to  look  back  on  as  their  happiest 
time,  but  which  I,  by  so  considering,  should  grievously 
wrong  many  a  subsequent  period,  I  may  string  together 
at  randoni  a  few  notes  from  my  diaries,  which  may  seem 
to  contribute  some  touch  or  trait  to  the  story  of  the  way 
we  lived  sixty  years  since. 

The  way  men  lived  in  Germany  at  that  date  I  find  given 
in  a  letter  from  the  Baron  de  Zandt  to  my  mother,  as  fol- 
lows :  "  In  many  parts  of  Germany,"  says  the  baron,  who, 
as  I  very  well  remember,  understood  what  good  living 
was,  "  a  man  may  be  boarded  and  lodged  comfortably  for 
£2G  a  year.  If  he  prefers  economy  to  comfort,  it  might 
be  done  for  considerably  less." 

From  the  journal  of  a  walking  tour  in  South  Devon, 
])crformed  in  the  year  1831,1  take  the  well-nigh  incrediljlo 
statement,  tliat  no  tobacconist  ex,  professo  could  at  that 
date  be  found  in  Plymouth !  "  I  succeeded  after  some 
research,"  says  the  diary,  "in  getting  some  tolerable  to- 
bacco from  a  chymist."  Doubtless  jik'uty  of  tobacco  was 
to  be  had,  (/"  I  had  known  where  to  look  for  it — at  chan- 
dlers' shops  and  taverns.  But  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
statement  in  the  fifty-five-year-old  "text"  is  correct.  No 
tobacconist's  sliop  was  then  to  be  found  in  Plymouth. 

In  July,  1832,  I  was  walking  in  Wales,  and  reaching 
Caermarthen  in  assize  time  (where  Judge  Alderson,  as  is 
recorded,  was  trying  prisoners  on  the  Crown  side),  found 
much  dilliculty  in  getting  any  accommodation  for  bed  or 
even  board.  Diit  at  length  a  commercial  gentleman  at 
the  Ivy  Bush,  liie  jtrincipal  inn,  "entering  into  conversa- 
tion in  a  patronizing  sort  of  way,  (old  me  it  was  a  /terror 
to  suppose  that  commercial  men  were  /(adverse  to  gentle- 
7* 


154  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

men  making  use  of  the  commercial  room,  provided  they 
icas  gentlemen.  For  himself,  he  was  always  most  'appy 
to  associate  with  gentlemen ;"  and,  in  fine,  invited  me  to 
join  their  table,  which  I  did  at  two  o'clock.  One  of  the 
assembled  party — there  were  some  fifteen  or  sixteen  of 
tliem — was  formally  named  president  for  the  day,  and 
took  the  head  of  the  table.  We  Avere  excruciatingly  gen- 
teel. I,  in  ray  ignorance,  asked  for  beer,  but  was  with 
much  politeness  informed  that  malt  liquor  was  not  used 
at  their  table.  Every  man  was  expected  to  consume  a 
pint  of  most  atrocious  sherry  at  5s.  Gel,  which  I  suppose 
compensated  the  landlord  for  the  wonderfully  small  price 
of  the  dinner.  A  dinner  of  three  courses,  consisting  of 
salmon,  chicken,  venison,  three  or  four  made  dishes,  and 
pastry,  was  put  before  us.  I  was  surprised  at  the  gor- 
geousness  of  this  feast,  and  began  to  have  alarming  antici- 
pations of  the  amari  allquid  which  must  follow.  But  I 
was  assured  that  this  was  the  ordinary  every-day  fare  of 
the  "commercial  gentlemen,"  and  the  bill  for  the  repast 
was  two  shillings!  My  diary  records  that  the  conversa- 
tion at  table  in  no  wise  savored  of  trade  in  any  of  its 
branches.  Shakespeare  and  Walter  Scott  were  descanted 
on  in  turn,  and  one  dapper  little  man,  who  travelled  in 
cutlery,  averred  that  Sir  Walter  had  on  one  occasion  been 
exceedingly  polite  to  him,  and  he  should  always  say  to 
the  end  of  his  life  that  he  was  a  gentleman. 

At  Dolgelly  I  was  struck  by  the  practice  prevailing 
there  of  tolling,  after  the  ringing  of  the  curfew,  a  number 
of  strokes  on  the  biggest  bell  equal  to  the  number  of  the 
days  which  had  elapsed  of  the  current  month.  I  wonder 
whether  they  do  so  still  ? 

I  went  out  of  my  way,  I  find,  in  the  course  of  the  same 
journey,  in  order  to  go  from  Liverpool  to  Manchester  l)y 
the  new  railway,  which  to  me,  as  to  thousands  of  others, 
was  an  object  of  infinite  curiosity  and  interest.  My  diary 
notes  that  there  were  fifteen  carriages  attached  to  the  en- 
gine, each  carrying  twelve  passengers.  Two  of  these  were 
first-class,  and  the  fare  for  the  journey  to  Manchester  in 
them  was  os.;  in  the  others  the  fare  was  35.  Qd.  The  train 
I  was  to  travel  by  was  called  a  second-class  train.     The 


OLD   DIARIES.  155 

first -class  trains  carried  no  second-class  passengers,  and 
did  the  journey  of  fifty-two  miles  in  one  hour  and  a  half. 
They  stopped  only  once  on  the  way.  The  second-class 
trains  stopped  frequently,  and  were  two  hours  on  the 
road.  I  estimated  the  speed  at  something  over  twenty- 
five  miles  an  hour,  and  remark  in  my  diary  that  "that  im- 
mense rapidity  was  manifested  to  the  senses  only  by  look- 
ing at  the  objects  passed." 

At  Manchester  I  find  myself  to  have  been  much  scan- 
dalized at  a  scene  which  I  witnessed  in  the  Collegiate 
Church  there.  There  Avere  seventeen  couples  to  be  mar- 
ried, and  they  were  all  married  at  once,  the  only  part  of 
the  service  individually  performed  being  the  "  I  take  thee," 
etc.,  etc.  I  perfectly  well  remember  at  this  distance  of 
time  the  bustling  about  of  the  clerk  among  them  to  insure 
that  every  male  should  be  coupled  to  the  right  female. 
"After  this  wholesale  coupling  had  been  completed,"  says 
my  diary,  "  the  daily  service  was  begun,  and  was  performed 
in  a  more  indecent  and  slovenly  way  than  I  ever  before  wit- 
nessed, which  is  saying  a  great  deal !  While  the  Psalms 
were  being  sung  the  priest,  as  having  nothing  to  do,  walked 
out,  and  returned  just  in  time  to  read  the  Lessons."  Such 
were  the  manners  and  habits  of  1832. 

A  few  weeks  later  I  find  an  entry  to  the  effect  that, 
"while  my  father  was  reading  'Grandison'  to  us  in  the 
evening  I  got  M.  Ilervieu  (the  artist  who  did  the  illustra- 
tions for  my  mother's  '  Domestic  Manners  of  the  Ameri- 
cans'  and  other  books,  and  who  chanced  to  be  passing  the 
evening  with  us  en  famille)  to  draw  me  a  caricature  illus- 
trating the  following  passage  of  Bcattie's  "Minstrel:" 

"And  yet  young  Edwin  was  no  vulgar  boy; 
Deep  thought  would  often  fix  his  youthful  eye. 
Dainties  he  heeded  not,  nor  gaud,  nor  toy, 
Save  one  short  pipe  /" 

I  possess  this  remarkable  work  of  art  to  the  present 
day! 

At  another  page  I  stumble  on  the  record  of  a  conversa- 
tion with  the  se.xton  oi  Leatherhead,  whom,  in  one  of  my 
ramifies,  I  found  digging  a  grave  in  the  churchyard  there. 


156  ■  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Three  sliilliiio^s,  I  learned,  was  the  price  of  a  grave  of  the 
ordinary  depth  of  five  feet.  Those,  however,  who  could 
afford  the  luxury  of  lying  deeper  paid  a  shilling  a  foot 
more. 

One  more  note  from  the  diaries  of  those  days  I  will 
venture  to  give,  because  it  may  be  taken  as  a  paralipo- 
menon  to  that  "Autobiography"  of  ray  brother  Avhich 
the  world  was  kindly  pleased  to  take  some  interest  in : 

"  Went  to  town  yesterday  [from  Harrow],  and  among 
other  commissions  bought  a  couple  of  single-sticks  with 
strong  basket  handles.     Anthony  much  approves  of  them, 
and  this  morning  we  had  a  bout  with  them.     One  of  the 
sticks  bought  yesterday  soon  broke,  and  we  supplied  its 
place  by  a  tremendous  blackthorn.     Neither  of  us  left  the 
arena  without  a  fair  share  of  rather  severe  Avales ;  but 
Anthony  is  far  my  superior  in  quickness  and  adroitness, 
and  perhaps  in  bearing  jjain  too.     I  fear  he  is  likely  to  re- 
main so  in  the  first  tvro,  but  in  the  third  I  am  determined 
he  shall  not." 
Thus  says  the  yellow  fifty-seven-year-old  page  ! 
And  I  have  literally  thousands  of  such  pages ;  volumi- 
nous records — among  other  matters — of  walking  excursions 
in  the  home  counties,  in  Devon,  in  Wales,  in  Gloucester- 
shire, and  on  the  banks  of  the  Severn  and  Wye,  not  a  page 
of  which  fails  to  bear  its  testimony  to  the  curiously  changed 
circumstances  under  which  a  pedestrian  would  now  under- 
take such  Avanderings.     I  find  among  other  jottings  — 
deemed  memorabilia  at  the  time — that  I  carried  a  knap- 
sack weighing  twenty-eight  pounds  over  the  top  of  Plinlim- 
mon,  because  I  considered  seven  and  sixpence  demanded 
by  the  guide  for  accompanying  me  excessive. 

But  olid  jam  satis.  I  will  inflict  no  more  upon  the 
patient  reader — the  impatient  will  have  skipped  much  of 
what  I  have  already  given  him. 

Alas  !  the  amari  aliquid  of  these  old  records  is  the  un- 
blushing chronicle  of  intentions,  enough  to  have  paved  all 
Acheron  with  a  durability  unachieved  by  any  higlnvay 
board !  The  only  comfort  for  diarists  so  imprudently 
candid  as  to  record  such  aspirations,  and  so  yet  more  im- ' 
prudent  as  to  read  them  half  a  century  after  the  penning 


OLD   DIARIES.  157 

of  tliem,  is  the  consideration  that  au  hoiit  des  comptes  the 
question  is,  not  what  one  has  done,  but  what  one  has  be- 
come. If  one  could  liatter  one's  self  that  one  has  the  mens 
Sana  in  corpora  sano  at  seventy-seven  years,  one  might 
accept  and  condone  the  past  without  too  much  regret ;  and 
at  all  events  it  is  something  to  have  undeniably  brought 
the  latter  to  its  seventy-eighth  year. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

OLD  DIARIES — [continued). 

I  CAME  down  from  Oxford  to  find  my  mother  and  my 
two  sisters  returned  from  America,  and  living  in  that 
Harrow  "Weald  farmhouse  which  my  brother  Anthony,  in 
his  "Autobiography,"  has  described,  I  think,  too  much  en 
noir.  It  had  once  been  a  very  good  house,  probably  the 
residence  of  the  owner  of  the  small  farm  on  which  it  was 
situated.  It  certainly  was  no  longer  a  very  good  house, 
but  it  was  not  "  tumble-down,"  as  Anthony  calls  it,  and 
was  indeed  a  much  better  house  than  it  would  have  been 
if  its  original  destination  had  been  that  of  merely  a  farm- 
house. But  it  and  "all  that  it  inherited"  was  assuredly 
shabby  enough,  and  had  been  forlorn  enough,  as  I  had 
known  it  in  my  vacations,  when  inhabited  only  by  my 
father,  my  brother  Anthony,  and  myself. 

But  my  mother  was  one  of  those  people  who  carry  sun- 
shine with  them.  The  place  did  not  seem  the  same. 
The  old  house,  whatever  else  it  may  have  been,  was  roomy  ; 
and  a  very  short  time  elapsed  before  my  mother  had  got 
round  her  one  or  two  nice  girl  guests  to  help  her  in 
brightening  it. 

I  may  mention  here  a  singular  circumstance  which  fur- 
nished me  with  means  of  estimating  my  mother's  character 
in  a  phase  of  her  life  which  rarely  comes  within  the  pur- 
view of  a  son.  Some  years  ago,  not  many  years  I  think 
after  my  mother's  death,  an  anonymous  stranger  sent  my 
brother  Anthony  a  packet  of  old  letters  written  by  my 
mother  to  my  father  shortly  before  and  shortly  after  their 
marriage.  lie  never  was  able  to  ascertain  who  his  benevo- 
lent correspondent  was,  nor  how  the  papers  in  question 
came  into  his  possession.  There  they  are,  carefully  tied  up 
in  a  neat  packet,  most  of  them  undated  by  her,  but  care- 
fully docketed  with  the  date  by  my  father's  hand.     The 


OLD  DIARIES.  I59 

handwriting,  not  spoiled  as  it  afterwards  became  by  writ- 
ing over  a  liundred  volumes,  is  a  very  elegant  one. 

There  is  a  singularly  old-world  flavor  about  them. 
There  is  a  staid  moderation  in  their  tone,  which  a  reader 
of  the  present  day,  fresh  from  the  perusal  of  similar  litera- 
ture, as  supplied  by  Mr.  Mudie,  would  probably  call  cold- 
ness. In  the  few  letters  which  precede  the  marriage  there 
are  no  warm  assurances  of  affection.  After  marria2:e  the 
language  becomes  more  warm.  I  am  tempted  to  trans- 
cribe a  few  passages  that  the  girls  of  the  period  may  see 
how  their  great-grandmothers  did  these  things. 

"It  docs  not  require  three  weeks'  consideration,  Mr. 
Trollope  " — thus  begins  the  first  letter,  undated,  but  dock- 
eted by  my  father,  "  F.  M.,  undated,  received  2d  Nov., 
1808" — "to  enable  me  to  tell  you  that  the  letter  you  left 
with  me  last  night  Avas  most  flattering  and  gratifying  to 
me.  I  value  your  good  opinion  too  highl/not  to  feel  that 
the  generous  proof  j-ou  have  given  me  of  it  must  forever, 
and  in  any  event,  be  remembered  by  me  with  pride  and 
gratitude.  But  I  fear  you  are  not  sufliciently  aware  that 
your  choice,  so  flattering  to  me,  is  for  yourself  a  very  im- 
prudent one."  And  then  follows  a  businesslike  statement 
of  possessions  aiid  ])rospects,  which  the  writer  fears  fall 
much  short  of  what  her  suitor  might  reasonably  expect. 

But  none  of  my  father's  faults  tended  in  the  slightest 
degree  to  lead  him  to  marry  a  millionaire,  whom  he  cared 
less  for,  in  preference  to  a  girl  without  a  sixpence,  whom 
lie  loved  better. 

"  In  an  affair  of  this  kind,"  the  letter  I  have  cited  goes 
on  to  say,  *'  I  do  not  think  it  any  disadvantage  to  either 
party  that  some  time  shoidd  elapse  between  the  first  con- 
templation and  final  (lecision  of  it.  It  gives  each  an  op- 
portunity of  becoming  acquainted  with  the  other's  ojtinion 
on  many  important  points,  which  could  not  be  canvassed 
before  it  was  thought  of,  and  which  it  would  be  useless  to 
discuss  after  it  was  settled." 

(Viuld  Mrs.  Cha])one  have  expressed  lu'rscif  belter? 

I  find  in  another  letter,  dated  (Ijy  my  father)  Gth  De- 
cember, 1808,  the  following  George-tlie-Thirdian  passage: 
"  The  most  disagreeable  of  created  beings,  Col. by 


IGO  WHAT   I   REMEMHER. 

name,  by  profession  Sir 's  led  captain,  is,  while  I  am 

writing,  talking  in  an  animated  strain  of  eloquence  to  Mrs. 
Milton  "  (my  grandfather  the  vicar's  second  wife  and  the 
jvriter's  stepmother),  "frequently  seasoning  his  discourse 
Avith  the  polished  phrase,  '  Blood  and  thunder,  ma'am  !'  so 
if  I  happen  to  swear  a  little  befoi*e  I  conclude,  be  so  good 
as  to  believe  that  I  am  accidentally  writing  down  what  he 
is  saying.  .  .  .  Poor,  dear,  innocent  Dr.  Nott  !  His  sim- 
plicity is  quite  pathetic  !  I  am  really  afraid  that  he  will 
be  taking  twopence  instead  of  two  pounds  from  his  par- 
ishioners, merely  because  he  does  not  know  the  difference 
between  them.  I  cannot  help  feeling  a  tender  interest  for 
such  lamblike  innocence  of  the  ways  of  this  wicked  world. 
I  dare  say  the  night  I  saw  him  at  the  opera,  he  thought 
he  was  only''''  (note  the  distinction)  "  at  the  play,  nay,  per- 
haps believed  they  were  performing  an  oratorio." 

In  one  letter  of  the  9th  of  April,  1809,  I  find  a  mention 
of  "  a  frank  "  sent  by  Mr  Mathias  with  a  translation  by 
him  into  Italian  of  the  "Echo  Song"  in  Conms,  of  which 
the  writer  says  that  it  is  "elegantly  done,  but  is  not 
Milton." 

In  another,  of  the  18th  of  May,  1809 — the  last  before 
the  marriage  took  place — I  find  the  following,  which  may 
interest  some  people.  "  I  wisli  you  could  be  here  to-mor- 
row," she  writes,  "  we  are  going  to  see  the  prisoners  of 
war  at  Odiam  (near  Reading)  perform  one  of  Moliere's 
plays.  Two  years  ago  we  attended  several  of  them,  and 
I  never  enjoyed  anything  more." 

More  than  a  score  of  these  faded  eighty-year-old  letters 
are  before  me ;  and  I  might,  perhaps,  have  gleaned  from 
them  some  other  little  touches  illustrative  of  men  and 
manners  when  George  the  Third  Avas  king,  but  were  I  to 
yield  to  all  the  temptations  of  the  sort  that  beset  the  path 
on  which  I  am  travelling,  I  should  try  my  readers'  patience 
beyond  all  hope  of  forgiveness. 

My  mother  had  brought  home  with  her  the  MS.  of  a 
couple  of  volumes  on  America;  and  the  principal  business 
on  liand  when  I  came  home  from  Oxford  was  the  finding 
a  publisher  for  these.  In  this  quest  she  was  zealously  and 
very  energetically  assisted  by  Captain  Basil  Hall,  himself 


OLD   DIARIES.  161 

the  author  of  a  work  on  America,  and  sundry  other  books, 
■vvbich  at  that  time  had  made  a  considerable  reputation. 
Basil  Hall's  book  on  America  did  not  take  a  favorable 
view  of  the  Americans  or  their  institutions ;  and  it  had 
been  mercilessly  attacked  and  accused  of  misrepresenta- 
tion by  all  the  critics  of  the  Liberal  party.  For  Hall's 
book,  and  everything  else  concerning  America,  was  in 
those  days  looked  at  from  a  political-party  point  of  view. 
America  and  the  Americans  were  understood  to  be  anti- 
every thing  that  was  dear  to  Conservatives.  They  were 
accordingly  the  pets  of  the  Whigs  (Radicals  and  Radical- 
ism had  not  yet  emerged  into  the  ken  of  respectable  folk, 
either  Whisr  or  Torv),  and  Hall's  book  had  been  abused 
accordino-lv.  He  was  very  sore  about  the  accusations  of 
untruthfulness,  and  was  delighted  with  a  book  which  sup- 
ported his  assertions  and  his  views.  How  my  mother 
came  to  be  introduced  to  him,  and  how  it  came  to  pass 
that  the  MS.  of  her  work  was  shown  to  him,  I  do  not  re- 
member,-but  the  result  was  that  he  was  zcalousl}^  eager 
for  the  publication  of  it.  The  title,  if  I  recollect  rightly, 
was  proposed  by  him.  "The  Domestic  Manners  of  the 
Americans"  was  published,  and  made  an  immediate  and 
great  success.  It  was  emphatically  the  book  of  the  season, 
was  talked  of  everywhere,  and  read  by  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men  and  women.  It  was  highly  praised  by  all 
the  Conservative  organs  of  the  i)ress,  and  vehemently 
abused  by  all  those  of  the  opposite  party.  Edition  after 
edition  was  solJ,  and  the  ])(.'cuniary  results  Avcre  large 
enough  to  avert  from  the  fainily  of  the  successful  author- 
ess tiie  results  of  her  husband's  ruined  fortunes. 

The  Americans  were  made  very  angry  by  this  account 
of  their  "domestic  manners" — very  naturally,  but  not 
very  wisely.  Of  course,  it  was  asserted  that  many  of  the 
statements  made  were  false  an<l  many  of  the  descriptions 
caricatured.  Nothing  in  the  book  from  beginning  to  end 
was  false  ;  nothing  of  minutest  detail  which  was  asserted 
to  liave  been  seen  had  not  been  seen;  nor  was  anything 
intentionally  caricatured  or  exaggerated  for  the  sake  of 
enhaneing  literary  ellect.  IJut  the  tone  of  the  book  was 
unfriendly,  and  was  throughout  the  result  of  offended 


162  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

taste  rather  than  of  well-weighed  opinion.  It  M^as  full  of 
universal  conclusions  drawn  from  particular  premises  ; 
and  no  sullicicnt  weight,  or  rather  no  Aveight  at  all,  was 
allowed  to  the  fact  that  the  observations  on  which  the  re- 
corded judgments  were  founded  had  been  gathered  almost 
entirely  in  Avhat  was  then  the  Far  "West,  and  represented 
the  "domestic  manners"  of  the  Atlantic  States  hardly  at 
all.  Unquestionably  the  book  was  a  very  clever  one,  and 
written  with  infinite  verve  and  brightness.  But — save  for 
the  fact  that  censure  and  satire  are  always  more  amusing 
than  the  reverse — an  equally  clever  and  equally  truthful 
book  might  have  been  written  in  a  diametrically  opposite 
spirit. 

No  doubt  the  markedly  favorable  reception  of  the  book 
was  what  mainly  irritated  our  American  cousins.  But  they 
certainly  w^re  angry  far  beyond  what  the  importance  of 
the  matter  would  seem  to  have  justified.  I  remember  that 
Colley  Grattan,  whose  fame  as  the  author  of  "  Highways 
and  Byways"  was  then  at  its  zenith,  in  writing  to-me  from 
Boston,  where  he  resided  for  many  years  as  British  consul, 
inviting  me  to  visit  hira  there,  went  into  the  question  of 
the  reception  I  might  be  likely  to  meet  with  on  that  side 
of  the  Atlantic.  "  I  think,"  he  wrote,  "  that  to  come  over 
under  a  false  name  Avould  be  uifra  dig.  But  really  I  fear 
that  if  you  come  under  your  own,  you  may  be  in  for  a 
dirjr 

Whether  Grattan  exaggerated  the  wrath  of  his  Bos- 
tonian  friends  for  the  sake  of  his  joke  I  do  not  know. 
Unquestionably  the  Americans,  even  speaking  of  them  as 
a  nation,  were  made  very  angry  by  my  mother's  book. 
But  the  anger  was  not  of  a  very  spiteful  or  rancorous  de- 
scription, for  from  that  day  to  this  I  have  never  met  with 
anything  but  kindness  and  cordial  friendliness  from  all 
the  Amei'icans  I  have  known — and  I  have  known  very 
many. 

The  return  of  my  mother,  and  the  success  of  her  book, 
produced  a  change  in  the  condition  and  circumstances  of 
affairs  at  home  which  resembled  the  transformation  scene 
in  a  pantomime  that  takes  place  at  the  advent  of  the  good 
fairy.     Even   the  old  farmhouse  at  Harrow  AVeald  was 


OLD   DIARIES.  163 

brightened  up  physically,  and  to  a  far  greater  degree 
morally,  by  her  presence.  But  we  did  not  remain  long 
there.  Very  shortly  she  took  us  back  to  Harrow,  not  to 
the  large  house  built  by  my  father  on  Lord  Northwick's 
land,  but  to  another  very  good  house  on  the  same  farm — 
not  above  a  stone's  throw  from  the  previous  one,  which  he 
had  made  (very  imprudently)  by  adding  to  arid  impi'oving 
the  original  farmhouse  —  a  very  comfortable  residence. 
This  was  the  house  which  the  world  has  heard  of  as  "  Or- 
ley  Farm." 

And  there  my  mother  became  immediately  surrounded 
by  many  old  friends  and  many  new  ones.  I  remember 
among  the  latter  Letitia  Landon,  better  known  to  the 
world  as  "  L.  E,  L."  She  was  a  /)c^iYe  figure,  very  insig- 
nificant-looking, with  a  sharp  chin,  turn-up  nose,  and  on 
the  whole  rather  inquante  face,  though  withont  any  pre- 
tension to  good  looks.  I  remember  her  being  seated  one 
day  at  dinner  by  the  side  of  a  certain  dignitary  of  the 
Church,  who  had  the  reputation  of  being  more  of  a  hon 
vivant  than  a  theologian,  and  who  was  old  enough  to  have 
been  her  father  ;  and  on  my  asking  her  afterwards  what 
they  had  been  talking  about  so  earnestly,  as  I  had  seen 
them,  "  About  eating,  to  be  sure  !"  said  she.  "I  always 
talk  to  everybody  on  their  strong  point.  I  told  him  that 
writing  poetry  was  my  trade,  but  that  eating  was  my 
])leasure,  and  we  were  fast  friends  before  the  fish  was  fin- 
ished !"  Her  sad  fate  and  tragic  ending,  poor  soul !  at- 
tracted much  attention  and  sympathy  at  the  time.  And 
doubtless  fate  and  the  world  used  her  hardly  ;  but  she 
was  one  of  those  who  never  under  any  circumstances 
would  have  run  a  straight  and  prosperous  course. 

Another  visitor  whom  I  remember  well  at  that  and 
other  times  was  the  Rev.  Iknry  ^lilman,  the  third  son 
of  Sir  Francis  Milinan,  wlio  was,  if  I  rightly  recollect, 
pliysician  to  Queen  Charlotte,  I  remember  hearing  him 
Bay  (but  this  was  long  previously)  that  no  man  need 
think  much  about  the  gout  Avho  Iiail  never  had  it  till  he 
was  forty.  His  widow,  T.aily  ]\Iilnian,  lived  with  her 
daughter  many  years  at  Pinner,  near  Harrow,  and  they 
were  very  old  friends  of  my  mother.     She  was  a  dear  old 


164  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

lady  witli  certain  points  of  eccentricity  about  her.  She 
used  always  to  carry  a  volume  of  South's  sermons  with 
her  to  church  for  perusal  during  the  less  satisfactory  dis- 
course of  her  more  immediate  pastor  ;  and  I  am  afraid 
was  not  sulhcieutly  careful  to  conceal  her  preference.  It 
must  be  over  sixty  years  since,  lunching  one  day  at  Pin- 
ner, I  was  much  amused  at  her  insisting  that  Abraham, 
the  old  one-eyed  footman,  Avho  had  lived  in  the  family  all 
his  life,  should  kneel  before  the  dining-room  fire  to  warm 
her  plate  of  pickled  salmon  !  I  remember  Avalking  with 
her  shortly  before  her  death  in  the  kitchen  garden  at  Pin- 
ner, when  Saunders,  the  old  butler,  who  had  developed  into 
a  sort  of  upper  gardener,  was  pruning  the  peach-trees. 
"  Oh  !  don't  cut  that,  Saunders,"  said  my  lady  ;  "  I  want 
to  see  those  blossoms.  And  I  shall  never  see  them  anoth- 
er yesLT  !"  "Must  come  off,  my  lady,"  said  Saunders,  inex- 
orably, as  he  sheared  away  the  branch.  "  lie  never  Avill 
let  me  have  my  way,"  grumbled  the  little  old  lady,  as  she 
resumed  her  trot  along  the  gravel  walk  under  the  peach 
wall.  My  lady,  however,  could  assert  herself  sufficiently 
on  some  occasions.  I  happened  to  be  at  Pinner  one  day 
when  Mrs.  Archdeacon  Hodgson,  a  neighbor,  called  some- 
what earlier  in  the  day  than  the  recognized  hour  for  morn- 
ing visits.  "  Very  glad  to  see  you,  my  dear, "  said  my  lady, 
rising  to  meet  her  astonished  visitor,  who  was  at  least 
twice  as  big  a  woman  as  herself,  I  mean  physically,  "but 
yotc  must  not  do  this  sort  of  thing  again  P^ 

Her  third  son,  Henry  Milman,  who,  having  begun  his 
career  as  the  author  of,  perhaps,  the  best  "Newdegate" 
ever  written,  was  famous  during  tlie  earlier  part  of  it  as  a 
poet  and  dramatist,  and  during  the  latter  portion  of  it 
(more  durably)  as  an  historian,  was,  with  his  very  beauti- 
ful wife,  one  of  our  visitors  at  this  period.  He  was  at 
that  time  certainly  a  very  brilliant  man,  but  I  did  not  like 
him  as  well  as  I  did  his  elder  brother.  Sir  AVilliam.  I 
give  only  the  impressions  of  an  undergraduate,  who  Avas, 
I  think,  rather  boyish  for  liis  age.  But  it  seemed  to  me 
that  the  poet  had  a  strain  of  worldliness  in  his  character, 
and  a  certain  flavor  of  cynicism  (not  incompatible,  how- 
ever, with  serious  views  and  earnest  feelings  on  religious 


OLD   DIARIES.  105 

subjects),  which  were  wholly  absent  from  the  elder  broth- 
er, who  wrote  neither  poems  nor  histories,  but  was  to  my 
then  thinking  a  very  perfect  gentleman.  '■''  Ncc  vixit  male 
qui  natus  moriensque  fefellUy 

I  find  recorded  in  a  diary  of  that  time  (November,  1832) 
some  notes  of  a  conversation  with  Henry  Milman,  one 
evening  when  I,  v>-ith  my  parents  and  sister,  had  been 
dining  with  Lady  Milman  at  Pinner,  which  are,  perhaps, 
worth  reproducing  here. 

I  asked  him,  in  the  course  of  a  long  after-dinner  con- 
versation, what  he  thought  of  Shuttleworth's  book  on  the 
"  Consistency  of  Revelation  Avith  Itself  and  with  Human 
Reason,"  which  formed  the  second  volume  of  the  series 
called  the  "  Theological  Library,"  and  which  I  had  recent- 
ly been  reading.  He  said  the  work  had  a  great  many 
faults,  one  of  the  principal  of  which  Avas  its  great  difficul- 
ty. On  this  point  I  find,  from  other  entries  in  my  diary, 
that  my  undergraduate  experience  fully  coincided  with 
his  more  valuable  judgment.  The  reasoning  in  a  great 
many  places  was,  he  said,  false  ;  and  in  that  part  which 
treated  of  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  creation  of  the  world, 
the  great  question  was  entirely  blinked.  The  abstract  of 
moral  duties  appeared  to  him,  he  saul,  to  be  by  far  the  most 
able  part  of  the  book.  He  considered  Shuttleworth  "  a  man 
of  very  limited  reading."  And  this,  perhaps,  he  may  have 
seemed  to  one  of  whom  it  used  to  be  said  jocosely  in  his 
own  family  that  "Hi-nry  reads  a  book,  not  as  other  mor- 
tals do,  line  after  line,  but  oblicpiely,  from  the  left-hand 
upper  corner  of  a  page  to  the  right-hand  lower  corner 
of  the  same  !" 

Milman,  on  the  same  occasion,  spoke  much  of  the  decay 
of  a  love  of  learning  in  Kugland  generallj',  and  particular- 
ly at  Oxford.  He  said  that  no  four  men  could  be  found 
there  who  were  up  to  the  European  level  of  the  day  in  any 
braiuli  of  learning — not  even  in  thcologj'.  And  speaking 
of  England  generally,  he  said  that  in  no  one  j)ublic  library 
in  the  crxnitry  could  the  books  requisite  for  a  man  who 
wished  to  writr  a  learned  work  on  any  sultject  whatcvir 
be  found,  (ierniatiy  was,  and  was,  he  ihougiit,  likely  to 
remain,  the  great  emporium  of  all  learning. 


166  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

As  for  the  Churcli,  he  said  that  it  would  never  be  the 
profession  that  it  had  been  —  that  it  woukl  not  be  his 
choice  for  a  son  of  his  ;  and  tliat  the  law  was  the  only- 
profession  for  talent  in  these  daj's.  He  observed  that  it 
was  very  remarkable  that  no  change — no  revolution — had 
ever  passed  over  this  country  without  adding  power  and 
wealth  to  that  profession. 

Here,  also,  I  may  record,  if  the  reader  will  pardon  the 
abruptness  of  a  transition  that  hurries  him  from  scholarly 
disquisition  to  antipodean  regions  of  subject  and  social 
atmosphere,  an  expedition  I  and  my  brother  Anthony 
made  too:ether,  which  recurs  in  mv  mind  in  connection 
witli  those  days.  But  I  think  that  it  must  have  belonged 
to  the  Harrow  Weald  times  before  the  return  of  my 
mother  from  America,  because  the  extreme  impecuniosity, 
which  made  the  principal  feature  of  it,  would  not  have 
occurred  subsequently.  We  saw — my  brother  and  I — 
some  advertisement  of  an  extra -magniiicent  entertain- 
ment that  Avas  to  take  place  at  Vauxhall ;  something  of 
so  gorgeous  promise  in  the  way  of  illuminations  and  fire- 
works, and  all  for  the  specially  reduced  entrance  fee  of  one 
shilling  each  person,  tliat,  chancing  to  possess  just  that 
amount,  we  determined  to  profit  by  so  unique  an  occasion. 
Any  means  of  conveyance  other  than  legs,  ignorant  in 
those  days  of  defeat,  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  We  had 
just  the  necessary  two  shillings,  and  no  more.  So  we  set  off 
to  walk  the  (at  least)  fourteen  miles  from  Harrow  Weald 
to  Vauxhall,  timing  ourselves  to  arrive  there  about  nine 
in  the  evening.  Anthony  danced  all  night.  I  took  no 
part  in  that  amusement,  but  contented  myself  with  looking 
on  and  with  the  truly  superb  display  of  fireworks.  Then 
at  about  1  a.m.  we  set  off  and  walked  back  our  fourteen 
miles  home  again  without  having  touched  bite  or  sup  ! 
Did  anybody  else  ever  purchase  the  delight  of  an  evening 
at  Vauxhall  at  so  high  a  price? 

I  did,  however,  much  about  the  same  time,  a  harder 
day's  walk.  I  was  returning  from  Oxford  to  Harrow 
Weald,  and  I  determined  to  walk  it,  not,  I  think,  on  this 
occasio7i,  dejiclcide  crumend,  but  for  pleasure,  and  to  try 
my  ])0wcrs.     The  distance,  I  tliink,  is,  as  near  as  may  be, 


OLD   DIARIES.  167 

forty-seven  miles.  But  I  carried  a  very  heavy  knapsack 
— a  far  heavier  one  than  any  experienced  campaigner 
would  have  advised.  This  was  the  longest  dav's  walk  I 
ever  achieved  ;  and  I  arrived  very  tired  and  footsore. 
But  the  next  morning  I  was  perfectly  well,  and  ready  to 
have  taken  the  road  again.  Upon  this  occasion  I  walked 
mv  first  stage  of  twelve  miles  before  breakfast ;  absolute- 
ly,  that  is  to  say,  before  breaking  my  fast.  I  think  that 
not  very  many  persons  could  do  this,  and  I  am  sure  that 
the  few  who  could  do  it  had  much  better  not  do  so. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  immense  change  operated  in  the 
circumstances  and  surroundings  of  all  of  us  by  my  mother's 
return  from  America  and  the  success  of  her  first  Avork, 
the  "  Domestic  Planners  of  the  Americans."  But,  cflica- 
cious  as  this  success  was  for  producing  so  great  a  change, 
and  sufficient  as  the  continued  success  of  her  subsequent 
works  was  to  rescue  the  Avhole  of  her  family  from  the 
slough  of  ruin,  in  which  my  father's  farming  operations, 
and  to  some  extent,  I  suppose,  his  injudicious  commercial 
attempt  at  Cincinnati,  had  involved  him,  the  results  of  this 
success  were  very  far  from  avaihng  to  stem  the  tide  of 
ruin  as  regarded  his  affairs.  They  were  sufficient  to  re- 
lieve him  from  all  expenses  connected  with  the  household 
or  its  individual  members,  but  not  to  supply,  in  addition  to 
all  these,  the  annual  losses  on  Harrow  farm.  Hence  the 
break-up  described  bj^  my  brother  in  his  "Autobiography," 
and  my  father's  exodus  from  Harrow  as  there  narrated. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

OLD  DIARIES — (coiithiued.) 

Of  all  that  Anthony  there  describes  I  saw  nothing.  I 
was  attending  the  "  divinity  lectures"  in  Oxford.  But  as 
soon  as  the  short  course  of  them  was  com})leted,  I  left 
England  to  join  my  parents  at  Bruges.  And  here  is  the 
condensed  record  of  the  journey  as  performed  in  1834.  I 
suppose  that  I  went  by  the  Thames  to  Calais,  instead  of 
by  Dover,  as  a  measure  of  economy.  I  left  Oxford  by  the 
Rocket  at  three  in  the  morning  on  Tuesday,  the  20th 
Ma},  and  on  reaching  London  found  that  there  was  no 
packet  to  Ostend  till  the  following  Saturday.  I  deter- 
mined, therefore,  to  go  to  Calais  by  that  Avhich  left  Tower 
Stairs  on  the  Wednesday.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever 
crossed  the  Channel.  The  times  I  have  crossed  that  salt 
girdle  subsequently  must  be  counted  by  hundreds.  I 
observe  that  having  begun  ray  journey  at  3  a.m.  did  not 
prevent  me  from  finding  "  Farren  admirable "  in  both 
"  The  Minister  and  the  Mercer  "  and  in  "  Secret  Service," 
at  Drury  Lane  that  Tuesday  evening.  I  slept  at  the 
Spread  Eagle  in  Gracechurch  Street  that  night,  and  left 
Tower  Stairs  at  10  a.m.  the  next  morning  in  the  JOord 
3Ielville,  Captain  Middletown  (names  of  ship  and  captain 
duly  recorded),  and  had  a  rough  passage  of  thirteen  hours; 
all  liands  sick,  "  even  I  a  little  at  last,"  says  the  veracious 
chronicle.  I  was  taken  by  the  victor  in  a  sharp  contest 
with  half  a  dozen  rivals  over  my  body  to  the  Hotel  de 
Londres,  a  clean,  comfortable,  and  quiet,  but,  I  suppose, 
quite  second-rate  inn.  There  was  no  conveyance  to  Dun- 
kirk before  one  the  next  day.  So,  "  after  a  delicious  break- 
fast on  coffee."  (Ah  !  how  la  belle  France  has  d'egringoled 
in  respect  to  coffee  and  some  other  matters  since  those 
happy  days !  Then  coffee  really  was  always  good  every- 
where in  France.     Noav  England  has  no  cause  whatever 


OLD   DIARIES.  169 

to  envy  her  neighbor  in  that  respect.)  I  spent  the  inter- 
vening hours  in  going  (of  all  things  in  the  world)  to  the 
top  of  the  church  tower.  The  diligence  brought  me  to 
Dunkirk  in  time  for  supper  at  the  Tete  de  Flandres  Hotel, 
at  which  "a  Frenchman,  who  sat  next  me,  insisted  on  my 
sharing  his  bottle  of  vin  de  Bourdeaux,  and  would  not 
hear  of  my  paying  my  share  of  the  cost,  saying  that  he 
was  at  home  in  his  own  country."  I  find  that  I  went  after 
sapper  "to  the  top  of  a  fine  tower"  (my  second  that  day  ! 
I  had  a  mania,  not  quite  cured  yet,  for  ascending  towers), 
and  started  at  five  the  next  morning  for  Nieuport  "in  a 
vile  little  barge,  in  company  with  two  young  pedestrianiz- 
ing  Belgians,"  and  arrived  there  about  noon,  after  a  most 
tedious  voyage,  and  changing,  without  bettering,  our 
barge  three  or  four  times.  At  Nieuport  we  found  "  a  sort 
of  immense  overgrown  gig-  with  two  horses,  which  con- 
veyed eight  of  us  to  Ostend." 

There  I  Avas  most  kindly  and  hospitably  received  by 
Mr.  Fauche,  the  English  consul,  and  his  very  lovely  wife. 
Mrs.  Fauche  had  been  before  her  marriage  one  of  my 
mother's  cohort  of  pretty  girl  friends,  and  was  already 
my  old  acquaintance.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Tom- 
kisson,  a  pianoforte  manufacturer,  who  had  married  the 
daughter  of  an  Irish  clergyman.  Their  daughter.  jNIary 
was,  as  I  first  knew  her,  more  than  a  pretty  girl.  She  was 
a  very  beautiful  and  accomplished  woman,  with  one  of 
the  most  delicious  soprano  voices  I  ever  heard.  I  was 
anxious  to  join  my  mother  at  Bruges,  who,  desjiite  her 
literary  triumphs,  had  passed  through  so  much  trouble 
since  I  had  seen  her.  But  it  needed  the  reinforcement  of 
this  anxiety  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  enable  me  to  resist  Mrs. 
Fanche's  invitation  to  remain  a  day  or  two  at  Ostend. 

I  found  my  father  and  mother,  and  my  two  sisters, 
Cecilia  and  Kmily,  establislu'd  in  a  large  and  very  rooniv 
house,  just  outside  the  southern  gate  of  the  city,  known 
as  the  Chateau  d'Hniidf.  It  was  a  thoroughly  good  aiid 
comfortaltjc  house,  ;iiiil,  taken  unfurnisjied,  speedily  be- 
came under  my  mother's  hands  a  viry  jileasant  one.  Nor 
was  it  long  ])efore  it  became  socially  a  very  agreeable  one, 
for  the  invariable  result  of  my  mother'.s  presence,  which 


no  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

drew  what  was  pleasant  aroiind  her  as  surely  as  a  magnet 
draws  iron,  showed  itself  in  the  collection  of  a  variety  of 
agreeable  people — some  from  the  other  side  of  the  Chan- 
nel, some  from  Ostend,  and  some  few  from  Bruges. 

All  this  made  a  social  atmosphere,  which  with  the  for- 
eign flavoring  so  wholly  new  to  me,  was  very  pleasant; 
but  it  seems  not  to  have  sufiiced  to  prevent  me  from  seiz- 
ing the  opportunity  for  a  little  of  that  locomotive  sight- 
seeing, the  passion  for  which,  still  unquenchod,  appears  to 
have  been  as  strong  in  me  as  when  I  hankered  after  a 
place  on  some  one  of  the  "down"  coaches  starting  from 
the  "  Cellar"  in  Piccadilly,  or  gazed  enviously  at  the  out- 
ward-bound ships  in  the  docks.  For  I  find  the  record  of 
a  little  week's  tour  among  the  Belgian  cities,  with  full 
details  of  all  the  towers  I  ascended,  observations  of  an 
ecclesiological  neophyte  on  the  churches  I  everywhere 
visited,  and  remarks  on  men  and  manners,  the  rawness  of 
which  does  not  entirely  destroy  the  value  of  them,  as  il- 
lustrating the  changes  wrought  there  too  by  the  lapse  of 
half  a  century. 

In  one  place  I  find  myself  tasting  the  contents  of  the 
librarv  of  a  Carmelite  monastery,  and  remarkincr  on  the 
strangeness  of  the  sole  exception  to  the  theological  char- 
acter of  the  collection  having  consisted  in  a  Cours  Gastro- 
nomiqtie,  which  appeared  to  me  scarcely  needed  by  a  com- 
munity bound  by  its  vows  to  perpetual  abstinence  from 
animal  food. 

Some  pages  of  the  record  also  are  devoted  to  the  state- 
ment of  "a  case"  which  I  lighted  on  in  some  folio  on 
casuistry,  on  the  question  "whether  it  is  lawful  to  adore 
a  crucifix,  when  there  is  strong  ground  for  supposing  that 
a  demon  may  be  concealed  in  the  material  of  which  it  is 
constructed !" 

It  seems  to  me  on  reading  these  pages  (for  the  first  time 
since  they  were  written),  that  I  was  to  no  small  degree 
seductively  impressed  by  the  music,  architectural  beauties, 
and  splendid  ceremonial  of  the  Roman  Catholic  worship, 
seen  in  those  days  to  much  better  effect  in  Belgium  than 
at  the  present  time  in  Rome.  But  amid  it  all,  the  sturdy 
Protestantism   of  Wliately's  pupil   manifests  itself   in  a 


OLD  DIARIES.  171 

moan  over  the  pity,  the  pity  of  it,  that  it  should  "  all  be 
based  on  falsehood." 

All  the  pleasant  state  of  things  at  the  Chateau  d'Hondt 
at  Bruges,  described  above,  was  of  short  duration,  how- 
ever, for  disquieting  accounts  of  the  health  of  my  brother 
Henry,  who  had  been  staying  at  Exeter  with  that  dear 
old  friend,  Fanny  Bent,  to  whom  the  reader  has  already 
been  introduced,  began  to  arrive  from  Devonshire. 

It  was  moreover  necessary  that  I  should  without  loss  of 
time  set  my  hand  to  something  that  might  furnish  me  with 
daily  bread.  So  on  the  21st  of  June  I  "  went  on  board 
Captain  Smithett's  vessel  the  Arroio  and  had  a  quiet  pas- 
sage to  Dover."  On  arriving  there  T  "  hastened  to  secure 
my  place  on  a  coach  about  to  start,  and  the  first  turn  for 
having  my  baggage  examined  at  the  custom-house.  This 
examination  was  rather  a  rigid  one,  and  they  made  me 
pay  4s.  Id.  for  two  or  three  books  I  had  with  me.  We 
reached  Canterbury  about  nightfall,  breakfasted  at  Roch- 
ester, and  arrived  at  Charing  Cross  at  six."  My  diary 
does  not  say  "six  p.m.,"  anJ  it  seem  incredible  that  any 
coach — though  on  the  slowest  road  out  of  London,  as  the 
Dover  road  always  was  —  should  have  breakfasted  at 
Rochester,  and  taken  the  whole  day  to  travel  thence  to 
Charing  Cross  ;  but  it  is  more  incredil)le  still  that  we 
should  have  stopped  to  breakfast  at  Rochester,  and  then 
reached  London  at  6  a.m. 

It  must  have  been  6  r.>r. ;  but  I  read  that  "I  started  at 
once  to  walk  to  Harrow  by  the  canal  (!)  where  I  was  re- 
ceived witli  more  than  kiiulncss  by  tlie  Grants." 

I  had  come  down  to  London  with  tlie  intention  of  giv- 
ing classical  teaching  to  any  who  were  willing  to  pay 
aVjout  ten  shillings  an  hour  for  it.  I  had  testimonials  and 
recommendations  galore  from  a  very  varied  collection  of 
j»astors,  masters,  and  friends.  Several  of  the  latter  also 
were  actively  eager  to  assist  my  object,  foremost  among 
whom  I  may  name  with  unforgetting  gratitude  Dr.  David 
AVilliams,  my  old  mast«'r  ;it  Winchester,  then  warden  of 
New  College,  'i'lius  furnislied,  j»i»pils  were  not  wanting, 
and  money  amj)Iy  sutlicient  for  my  immediate  needs 
seemed  to  come  in  easily.      I  did  my  bfst  with  mv  pu[iils 


172  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

during  the  short  hours  of  my  work ;  but  rauch  success  is 
not  to  be  expected  from  pupils  the  very  circumstance  and 
terms  of  whose  tuition  give  rise  to  the  presumption  that 
they  are  irremediably  stupid  or  idle,  and  the  hired  "coach" 
a  dernier  resort.  Such  employers  as  I  had  to  deal  with, 
however,  if  they  assigned  you  somewhat  hopeless  tasks, 
appeared  to  be  satisfied  with  an  infinitesimal  amount  of 
results,  and  I  believe  I  gave  satisfaction  in  all  cases  save 
that  of  a  lady,  the  widowed  mother  of  an  only  son,  a  very 
elegant  and  fashionable  dame  in  Belgrave  Square,  who 
complained  once  to  the  clergyman  who  had  recommended 
me  to  her,  that  I  had  come  to  her  house  one  Monday  morn- 
ing "  in  a  very  dusty  condition."  1  fear  she  might  have 
said  every  Monday  morning,  for  my  custom  was  to  walk 
up  to  my  lesson  from  Harrow,  Avhere  I  had  been  spending 
the  Sunday  with  the  Grants,  and  "  immer  noch  stduhen 
die  Wege^^  hardly  less  on  the  Harrow  road  than  Goethe 
found  them  to  do  in  Italy.  I  had  to  tell  her  that  the  dust 
on  my  shoes  had  not  reached  my  brain,  and  that  I  had  no 
pretension,  and  entirely  declined,  to  be  an  exemplar  to  her 
son  in  the  matter  of  his  toilet.  We  parted  very  good 
friends,  however,  at  the  end  of  my  engagement.  When 
she  said  some  complimentary  words  about  my  work  with 
her  son,  I  could  not  refrain  from  saying  that  I  had  done 
my  best  to  prepare  myself  for  it  by  having  my  shoes  care- 
fully blacked.  She  laughed,  and  said,  "I  could  not  find 
fault  with  your  Latin  and  Greek,  Mr.  Trollope.  And 
would  it  not  be  better  if  people  always  confined  their 
criticism  to  what  they  do  understand  ?" 

I  was  living  during  these  months  in  Little  jNIarlborough 
Street,  in  a  house  kept  by  a  tailor  and  his  mother.  It  was 
a  queer  house,  disconnected  with  the  row  of  buildings  in 
which  it  stood,  a  survival  of  some  earlier  period.  It  stood 
in  its  own  court,  by  which  it  was  separated  from  the  street. 
I  found  all  the  place  transmogrified  when  I  visited  it  a 
year  or  two  ago.  During  the  latter  part  of  my  residence 
there  the  lodgings  were  shared  by  ray  brother  Anthony, 
who,  as  related  by  himself,  had  accepted  a  place  in  the 
secretary's  oflSce  in  the  post-office.  The  lodgings  were 
very  cheap,  more  so  I  think  than  the  goodness  of  them 


OLD   DIARIES.  173 

might  have  justified.  We  were  the  only  lodgers ;  and  the 
cheapness  of  the  rooms  was,  I  suspect,  in  some  degree 
caused  by  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  young-men  lodgers 
would  not  have  tolerated  the  despotic  rule  of  our  old  land- 
lady, the  tailor's  mother.  She  made  us  very  comfortable  ; 
but  her  laws  were  many,  and  of  the  nature  of  those  of  the 
Medes  and  Persians. 

Meantime  matters  were  becoming  more  and  more  gloomy 
in  the  Chateau  d'Hondt,  outside  the  St.  Peter's  Gate,  at 
Brusces.  Mv  brother  Henry  had  returned  thither  from 
Devonshire  ;  and  his  condition  was  unmistakably  becom- 
ins:  worse.  While  I  was  still  living  in  Little  Marlborough 
Street,  my  mother  came  over  hurriedly  to  London,  bring- 
ing him  and  my  sister  Emily  with  her.  They  travelled 
by  boat  from  Osteud  to  London  to  avoid  the  land  journey. 
I  take  it  poor  Henry  was  led  to  suppose  that  the  journey 
was  altogether  caused  by  the  necessity  of  interviews  be- 
tween my  mother  and  her  publishers.  But  the  real  motive 
of  it  was  to  obtain  the  best  medical  advice  for  hiui  and 
(as,  alas !  it  began  to  appear  to  be  necessary)  for  my  sister 
Emily. 

All  kinds  of  schemes  of  southern  travel,  and  voyages  to 
Madeira,  etc.,  had  been  proposed  for  Henry,  who,  having 
himself,  witii  the  hopefulness  peculiar  to  his  malady,  no 
shadow  of  a  doubt  of  his  own  recovery,  entered  into  them 
all  with  the  utmost  zest.  A  kind  friend,  I  forget  by  what 
means  or  interest,  had  offered  to  provide  free  passages  to 
Madeira.  Alas  !  the  first  consultation  with  the  medical 
authorities  put  an  end  to  all  such  schemes.  And  my  i)Oor 
mother  had  the  inexpressibly  sad  and  difficult  task  of 
quashing  them  all  without  allowing  her  patient  to  suspect 
the  real  reason  of  tlicir  being  given  up. 

She  had  to  take  liim  back  to  Bruges  ;  and  I  accom- 
panied them  to  the  l»oat  lying  off  the  Tower,  and  remained 
with  them  an  hour  before  it  weighed  anchor.  i\iid  then 
and  there  I  took  the  last  leave  of  my  brother  Henry,  I 
well  knowing,  he  never  imagining,  that  it  was  forever. 

And  now  l»<'gan  at  Bruges  a  time  of  such  stress  and 
troul)Ie  for  jny  mother  as  few  wonun  have  ever  passed 
through.    The  grief,  the  Ilachel  sorrows  of  mothers  watch- 


174  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

iiig  by  the  dying  beds  of  those  to  save  whose  lives  they 
would — ah  !  how  readily — give  their  own,  are,  alas,  com- 
mon enough.  But  no  account,  no  contemplation  of  any 
such  scene  of  anguish,  can  give  an  adequate  conception  of 
what  my  mother  went  through  victoriously. 

Her  literary  career  had  hitherto  been  a  succession  of 
triumphs.  Money  was  coming  in  with  increasing  abun- 
dance. But  these  successes  had  not  yet  lasted  long  enough 
to  enable  her,  in  the  face  of  all  she  had  done  for  the  ruined 
household  to  which  she  had  returned  from  America,  to 
lay  by  any  fund  for  the  future.  And  though  the  proceeds 
of  her  labor  were  amply  sufficient  for  all  current  needs,  it 
was  imperative  that  that  labor  should  not  be  suspended. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  she  had  to  pass 
her  days  in  watching  by  the  bedside  of  a  very  irritable 
invalid,  and  her  nights — when  he  fortunately  for  the  most 
part  slept — in  composing  fiction  !  It  was  desirable  to  keep 
the  invalid's  mind  from  dwelling  on  the  hopelessness  of 
his  condition.  And,  indeed,  he  was  constantly  occupied 
in  planning  travels  and  schemes  of  activity  for  the  antic- 
ipated time  of  his  recovery,  which  she  had  to  enter  into 
and  discuss  with  a  cheerful  countenance  and  bleeding 
heart.  It  was  also  especially  necessary  that  my  sisters, 
especially  the  younger,  already  threatened  by  the  same 
malady,  should  be  kept  cheerful,  and  prevented  from 
dwelling  on  the  phases  of  their  brother's  illness.  This 
was  the  task  in  which,  with  agonized  mind,  she  never 
faltered  from  about  nine  o'clock  every  morning  till  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  Then  with  wearied  body,  and 
mind  attuned  to  such  thoughts  as  one  may  imagine,  she 
had  to  sit  down  to  her  desk  to  write  her  novel  with  all  the 
verve  at  her  command,  to  please  light-hearted  readers,  till 
two  or  three  in  the  morning.  This,  by  the  help  of  green 
tea  and  sometimes  laudanum,  she  did  daily  and  nightly 
till  the  morning  of  the  23d  of  December  of  that  sad  1834; 
and  lived  after  it  to  be  eighty-three  ! 

But  her  mind  was  one  of  the  most  extraordinarily  con- 
stituted in  regard  to  recuperative  power  and  the  capacity 
of  throwing  off  sorrow  that  I  ever  knew  or  read  of.  Any 
one  who  did  not  know  her,  as  her  own  son  knew  her,  might 


OLD   DIARIES.  iTo 

have  supposed  that  she  was  deficient  in  sensibility.  No 
judgment  could  be  more  mistaken.  She  felt  acutely,  ve- 
hemently. But  she  seemed  to  throw  off  sorrow  as,  to  use 
the  vulgar  phrase,  a  duck's  back  throws  off  water,  be- 
cause the  nature  of  the  organism  will  not  suffer  it  to  rest 
there.  How  often  have  I  applied  to  her  the  words  of 
David  under  a  similar  affliction  ! 

My  brother  died  on  the  23d  of  December,  1834,  and 
was  buried  at  Bruges,  in  the  Protestant  portion  of  the 
city  cemetery.  Had  his  life  been  much  prolonged,  I  think 
that  that  of  my  mother  must  have  sunk  under  the  burden 
laid  upon  it.  I  hastened  to  cross  the  Channel  as  soon  as  I 
heard  of  my  brother's  death,  but  did  not  arrive  in  time 
for  his  funeral. 

A  few  days  later  I  was,  I  find,  consulting  a  Bruges  phy- 
sician, a  Dr.  Herbout,  whom  I  still  remember  perfectly 
well,  about  the  health  of  my  father,  which  had  recently 
been  causing  my  mother  some  anxiety.  Herbout  was  an 
old  army  doctor  who  had  served  under  Napoleon.  It  is 
probable  that  he  was  more  of  a  surgeon  than  a  physician. 
His  opinion  was  that  my  father's  condition,  though  not 
satisfactory,  did  not  indicate  any  cause  for  immediate 
alarm. 

I  remained  at  Bruges  till  the  first  week  in  April.  That 
is  to  say,  the  Chateau  d'Hondt  was  my  home  during  those 
months,  but  the  monotony  of  it  was  varied  by  frequent 
visits  to  Ostend,  which  Mrs,  Fauche  always  found  the 
means  of  making  agreeable.  One  week  of  the  time  also 
was  spent  in  a  little  tour  througli  those  parts  of  Belgium 
which  I  had  not  yet  seen,  in  company  with  my  old  friend, 
and  the  reader's  old  acquaintance,  Fanny  Bent.  It  was  an 
oddly  constituted  travelling  ])arty — the  young  man  full 
of  strength,  activity,  and  eagerness  to  see  everything  that 
indefatigable  exertion  could  show  him,  and  the  very  i)lain, 
Quaker- like,  niiildlc -agctl  old  m;iid,  absolutely  new  to 
Continental  ways  and  manners  and  habits.  Yet  few  peo- 
])le,  I  think,  have  ever  seen  the  many  interesting  sights  of 
the  reirion  we  travelled  over  more  coninlefelv  than  I  and 
Fanny  Bent,  The  number  of  towers  (Antwerp  among 
tht-ni)  to  the  tops  of  which  I  look  her,  as  recorded  in  my 


176  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

diary,  seems  preposterous.  But  Fanny  Bent  bravely  stuck 
to  her  work,  and  where  I  led  she  followed.  I  have  since 
squired  many  fairer  and  younger  dames,  but  never  one  so 
bravely  determined  on  doino-  all  that  was  to  be  done.  And 
very  much  we  both  enjoyed  it. 

Almost  immediately  after  my  return  from  this  little 
excursion  I  received  a  letter  from  an  old  Wykehamist 
schoolfellow,  the  Rev.  George  Hall,  of  Magdalen,  son  of 
the  head  of  Pembroke  at  Oxford,  offering  me  a  master- 
ship in  King  Edward's  Grammar  School,  at  Birmingham, 
The  head -master  of  that  school  was  at  that  time  Dr. 
Jeune,  a  Pembroke  man,  and  thence  a  close  friend  of 
George  Hall,  who  himself  held  one  of  the  masterships, 
Avhich  he  was  about  to  resign.  The  salary  of  the  master- 
ship offered  me  was  £200  a  year,  with,  of  course,  pros- 
pects of  advancement.  I  at  once  determined  to  accept 
it,  and,  with  the  promptitude  Avliich  in  those  days  charac- 
terized me  (at  least  in  all  cases  in  which  promptitude  in- 
volved immediate  locomotion),  I  decided  to  leave  Bruges 
for  Birmingham  on  the  moi-row.  I  slept  at  Ostend  the 
next  night,  and  the  following  day  crossed  to  Dover  with 
my  friend  Captain  Smithett,  of  the  Arroic,  "  the  only 
other  passengers,"  says  my  diary,  "being  a  maniac  and  a 
corpse." 

Smithett  was  a  remarkably  handsome  man,  and  the 
very  beau-ideal  of  a  sailor.  For  many  years  he  was  the 
man  always  selected  to  carry  any  royal  or  distinguished 
personage  who  had  to  cross  the  Channel  from  or  to  Dover, 
lie  was  an  immense  favorite  Avith  all  the  little  Ostend 
world — with  the  female  part  of  it,  of  course,  especially. 
I  remember  his  showing  me,  with  much  laughter,  an  anony- 
mous billet  doux  which  had  reached  him,  beginning,  "  0 
toi  qui  commandes  la  Flbche,  tu  peux  aussi  commander  les 
cceurs,''^  etc.,  etc.  I  discovered  the  writer  some  time  sub- 
sequently in  an  extremely  pretty  baif/neuse,  the  wife,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  of  a  highly  respected  Belgian  banker.  Per- 
liaps  all  his  Ostend  admirers  did  not  know  that  he  had  a 
charming  wife  at  Dover.  He  was  all  the  more  an  object 
of  our  admiration  from  the  singular  contrast  between  him 
and  his   colleague,  a  certain  Cai)tain  Murch.     Between 


OLD   DIARIES.  177 

tiiein  they  did  in  those  days  the  whole  of  the  Ostend  and 
Dover  mail  business.  Poor  Murch  was  much  of  an  inva- 
lid, and,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  suffered  invariably  on 
every  passage,  from  year's  end  to  j^ear's  end,  from  sea- 
sickness. Think  of  the  purgatory  involved  in  the  combi- 
nation of  such  a  constitution  with  such  a  profession  !  The 
port  of  Ostend  was  at  that  time  somewhat  difficult  to  en- 
ter in  heavy  weather,  and  bad  fogs  were  very  frequent  on 
that  coast.  Poor  Murch  was  always  getting  into  difficul- 
ties which  involved  "  lying  to,"  and  reaching  his  destina- 
tion long  after  time  ;  whereas  we  held  that  the  dashing 
Arroio  would  go  wherever  the  Flying  Dutchman  could. 
And  indeed  I  have  seen  her  come  in  when  I  could  only 
remain  at  the  pier-head  by  lashing  myself  to  a  post.  So 
much  for  "  le  beau  Capitaine  Smit^te.^'' 

Losing  no  time  in  London,!  reached  Birmingham  on  the 
evening  of  Sunday  the  5th,  and  found  my  friend  Hall 
quite  sure  of  my  election  by  the  governors  of  the  school 
on  the  recommendation  of  his  friend  Jeune.  But  then 
began  a  whole  series  of  slips  between  the  cup  and  the 
lip.  There  appeared  to  be  no  doubt  of  their  electing  me 
if  they  elected  anybody;  but  a  part  of  the  board  wished, 
on  financial  grounds,  to  defer  the  election  of  a  new  master 
for  a  while.  Tiie  governors,  at  their  meeting,  put  off  the 
decision  of  the  matter  to  another  meeting  on  the  24th. 
On  the  24th  the  matter  was  again  put  off.  I  had  left 
Birmingham  on  the  12th,  with  the  promise  from  Jeune,  in 
whom  on  that,  and  on  subsequent  occasions,  I  found  a 
most  kind  frieinl,  that  he  would  do  all  he  could  to  urge 
the  governors  to  a  decision,  and  lose  no  time  in  letting  me 
know  the  result.  On  the  24th  the  election  of  a  new  mas- 
ter was  again  "  deferred  "  by  the  governors,  and  the  pros- 
pect of  their  foining  to  a  decision  to  elect  one  sliortly 
seemed  to  become  more  uncertain.  Many  other  meetings 
of  the  board  took  place  witli  a  similar  result.  On  one 
occasion  Jeune  told  me  that,  had  he  been  m  Birmingham 
at  the  time  of  the  meeting,  he  felt  sure  that  he  c<»uld  have 
indiico(l  them  to  come  to  an  election;  but  he  had  unfor- 
tunately been  absent.  At  another  meeting  I  was  told  that 
I  should  have  been  elected  had  not  Sir  Edward  Thoinason, 
8* 


178  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

one  of  the  governors  who  wished  to  elect  a  master,  run 
away  to  a  dinner-party,  thus  leaving  the  non-content  party 
in  the  majority. 

Meanlinie  I  took  my  degree  at  Oxford  on  the  29th  of 
April,  which  was  needed  for  holding  the  appointment  iu 
question,  and  waited  with  what  patience  I  could  in  Lon- 
don, dividing  my  time  between  the  dear  and  ever- kind 
Grants  and  my  brother  Anthony,  who  was  doing  —  or, 
rather,  getting  into  continual  hot  water  for  not  doing — 
his  work  at  the  post-office.  lie  was,  I  take  it,  a  very  bad 
office-clerk  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  appointed  a  surveyor's 
clerk  became  at  once  one  of  the  most  efficient  and  valua- 
ble officers  in  the  post-office. 

Leavinor  Oxford  on  the  nisfht  of  the  29th  I  returned  to 
Birmingham,  and  was  again  tantalized  by  repeated  incon- 
clusive meetings  of  the  school  governors,  till  at  last,  on 
the  6th  of  May,  Jeune  told  me  that  he  thought  that  they 
would  not  come  to  an  election  till  midsummer,  but  that,  in 
any  case,  thei-e  was  another  of  the  masters  whose  resignation 
he  had  reason  to  believe  would  not  be  long  deferred,  and 
I  should  assuredly  have  his  place.  On  tliis  I  returned  to 
London,  and  on  the  8th  of  May  left  it  for  Dover,  on  my 
way  to  join  my  mother  in  Paris. 

Having  spoken  of  Anthony's  efficiency  as  an  officer  of 
the  post-office,  I  may,  I  think,  in  the  case  of  so  Avell-known 
a  man,  venture  to  expend  a  page  in  giving  the  reader  an 
anecdote  of  his  promptness,  of  which,  as  of  dozens  of  oth- 
er similar  experiences,  he  says  nothing  in  his  "Autobiog- 
raphy." He  had  visited  the  office  of  a  certain  postmaster 
in  the  southwest  of  Ireland  in  the  usual  course  of  his  du- 
ties, had  taken  stock  of  the  man,  and  had  observed  him 
in  the  course  of  his  interview  carefully  lock  a  large  desk 
in  the  office.  Two  days  afterwards  there  came  from  head- 
quarters an  urgent  inquiry  about  a  lost  letter,  the  contents 
of  which  were  of  considerable  value.  The  hiformation 
reached  the  surveyor  late  at  night,  and  he  at  once  put  the 
matter  into  the  hands  of  his  subordinate.  Tliere  was  no 
conveyance  to  the  place  where  my  brother  determined  his 
first  investigations  should  be  made  till  the  following  morn- 
ing.    But  it  did  not  suit  him  to  wait  for  that,  so  he  hired 


OLD   DIARIES.  17  9 

a  horse,  and,  riding  bard,  knocked  up  the  postmaster  whom 
he  had  interviewed,  as  related,  a  cou[»le  of  days  before,  in 
the  small  hours.  Possibly  the  demeanor  of  the  man  in 
some  degree  influenced  his  further  proceedings.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  he  walked  straight  into  the  office,  and  said, 
"  Open  that  desk  !"  The  key,  he  was  told,  had  been  lost 
for  some  time  past.  Without  another  word  he  smashed 
the  desk  with  one  kick,  and  there  found  the  stolen  letter! 

I  have  heard  from  him  so  many  good  stories  of  his  offi- 
cial experiences  that  I  feel  myself  tolerably  competent  to 
write  a  volume  of  "  Memoirs  of  a  Post-office  Surveyor." 
But  for  the  present  I  must  content  myself  with  one  other 
of  his  adventures.  lie  had  been  sent  to  South  America  to 
arrange  some  difficulties  about  postal  communication  in 
those  parts  which  our  authorities  Avished  to  be  accom- 
plished in  a  shorter  time  than  had  been  previously  the 
practice.  There  was  a  certain  journey  that  had  to  be 
done  by  a  mounted  courier,  for  which  it  was  insisted  that 
three  days  were  necessary,  while  my  brother  was  persuad- 
ed it  could  be  done  in  two.  lie  was  told  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  their  roads  and  their  horses,  etc.  "Well," 
said  he,  "  I  will  ask  you  to  do  nothing  that  I,  -who  know 
nothing  of  the  country,  and  can  only  have  such  a  horse  as 
your  post  can  furnish  me,  cannot  do  myself.  I  will  ride 
with  your  courier,  and  then  I  shall  be  able  to  judge." 
And  at  daN'break  the  next  morning  they  started.  The 
brute  they  gave  him  to  ride  was,  of  course,  selected  with 
a  view  of  making  good  tluir  case,  ami  the  saddle  was  sim- 
ply an  instrument  of  torture.  lie  rode  through  that  hot 
day,  and  kept  the  courier  to  his  work  in  a  style  that  rath- 
er astonished  that  official.  But  at  night,  when  they  were 
to  rest  for  a  few  hours,  Anthony  confessed  that  he  was  in 
such  a  state  that  he  began  to  think  that  he  should  have  to 
throw  up  the  sponge,  which  would  have  been  dreadful  to 
him.  So  he  ordered  two  bottles  of  brandy,  ])0ured  tlieni 
into  a  wash-hand  basin,  and  >^(it  iti  It!  His  description  of 
the  agonizing  result  was  graphic  I  But  the  next  ilay,  he 
said,  he  was  able  to  sit  in  his  saildle  without  ])ain,  did  the 
journey  in  the  two  days,  and  carried  his  |)oint. 

But   I  must  abstain  from  further  anticipations  of  the 


180  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

memoirs  above  spoken  of,  the  more  especially  as  I  left  my 
own  story  at  the  point  where  I  had  before  me,  like  Rous- 
seau— and  probabl}"  with  no  less  rose-colored  anticipations 
— xm  voyage  d  faire,€t  Paris  au  bout,  and  that  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life  ! 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

AT    PARIS, 

I  OBSERVE  that  I  left  Calais  in  the  banquette  of  the  dili- 
gence at  6  P.M.  on  the  Friday  night,  May  8,  1835,  and 
reached  Pai'is  at  3  p.m.  on  Sunday  morning — thirty-three 
hours.  I  remember  my  great  surprise  at  finding  the  en- 
tire way  paved  after  the  fashion  that  I  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  consider  proper  only  for  the  streets  of  towns. 
We  used,  for  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  way,  the  un- 
paved  spaces  left  on  either  side  of  the  paved  causeway. 
But  the  conductor  told  me  that  in  winter  they  were  gen- 
erally obliged  to  keep  on  the  latter  the  whole  way.  The 
horses,  two  wheelers  and  three  leaders  abreast,  were  al- 
most—  indeed,  I  think  quite  —  without  exception  gray. 
They  were  also  all,  or  almost  all,  stallions.  The  style  of 
driving  struck  me  as  very  rough,  awkward,  violent,  and 
inelegant,  but  masterful  and  efficacious.  The  driver  was 
changed  with  every  relay  ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  very  prob- 
able that  it  was  expedient  that  each  man  should  know 
such  cattle,  not  only  on  the  road,  but  in  the  stable. 

We  breakfasted  at  Abbeville  and  dined  at  Beauvais. 
And  I  tind  it  recorded  that  I  contrived  at  both  places  to 
tind  time  fur  a  tlying  visit  to  the  cathedral,  and  was  high- 
ly delighted  with  the  noble  fragment  of  a  c^iurch  at  the 
latter  city. 

I  went  to  bed  on  arriving  at  the  Hotel  de  Lille  et  d'Al- 
bion,  which  was  in  those  days  a  very  dilTerent  place  from 
its  noisy,  i)retentious,  and  vulgar  sticcessor  of  the  same 
name  in  the  Rue  St.  Honor6.  The  old  house  in  the  Rue 
des  Filles  de  St.  Thomas  has  long  riince  disapiH-ared,  to- 
gether with  the  (juict  little  street  in  which  it  was  situatt'(l. 
Like  its  successor,  it  was  almost  exclusively  used  by  Kng- 
lish,  but  they  were  the  English  of  the  days  when  person- 
ally-couducted  herds  were  not.    The  service  was  performed 


182  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

by  handmaidens  in  neat  caps,  and  white  bodices  over  their 
colored  skirts.  There  were  no  swallow-tail-coated  waiters, 
and  the  coffee  was  exquisite.  2\mpi  passati,  perchh  non 
tornate  plii? 

At  ten  the  next  morning  I  went  to  No.  G  Rue  de  Pro- 
vence, where  I  found  my  parents  and  my  sisters  at  break- 
fast. 

The  object  of  this  Paris  journey  was  twofold — the  writ- 
ing a  book  in  accordance  with  an  agreement  which  my 
mother  had  entered  into  with  Mr.  Ricliard  Bentley,  the 
father  of  the  publisher,  and  the  consultation  of  a  physi- 
cian to  whom  she  had  been  especially  recommended  re- 
specting my  father's  health,  which  was  rapidly  and  too 
evidently  declining.  They  had  been  in  Paris  some  time 
already,  and  had  formed  a  large  circle  of  acquaintance, 
both  English  and  French.  I  was  told  by  my  mother 
that  the  physician,  who  had  seen  my  father  several  times, 
had  made  no  ])leasant  report  of  his  condition,  lie  did 
not  apprehend  any  immediately  alarming  phase  of  illness, 
but  said  that,  had  he  been  left  to  guess  my  father's  age 
after  visiting  him,  he  should  have  supposed  him  to  be 
more  than  fourscore,  the  truth  being  that  he  was  very 
little  more  than  sixty. 

This,  my  first  visit'  to  Paris,  lasted  one  month  only, 
from  the  9th  of  May  to  the  9th  of  June,  and  many  of  the 
recollections  which  seem  to  me  now  to  be  connected  with 
it  very  probably  belong  to  subsequent  visits,  for  my  diary, 
reopened  now  for  the  first  time  after  the  interval  of  more 
than  half  a  century,  was  kept,  I  find,  in  a  very  intermittent 
and  slovenly  manner.  No  doubt  I  found  very  few  min- 
utes for  journalizing  in  the  four-and-twenty  hours  of  each 
day. 

I  well  remember  that  my  first  impression  of  Lutetia 
Parisiorum  —  "Mudtown  of  the  Parisians,"  as  Carlyle 
translates  it — was  that  of  having  stepped  back  a  couple 
of  centuries  or  so  in  the  history  of  European  civilization 
and  progress.  AYe  are  much  impressed  at  home,  and  talk 
much  of  the  vastness  of  the  changes  which  the  last  fifty 
years  have  made  in  our  own  city,  but  I  think  that  which 
the  same  time  has  operated  in  Paris  is  much  greater. 


AT   PARIS.  183 

Puttinf  aside  the  mere  extension  of  streets  and  dwellings, 
which,  great  as  it  has  been  in  Paris,  has  been  much  greater 
in  London,  the  changes  in  the  former  city  have  been  far 
more  radical.  Certainly  there  are  many  quarters  of  Lon- 
don where  the  eye  now  rests  on  that  which  is  magnificent, 
and  which,  at  the  time  when  I  knew  the  town  well,  pre- 
sented nothing  but  what  was,  if  not  sordid,  at  least  ugly. 
But,  to  those  who  remember  the  streets  of  Louis  Philippe's 
city,  the  change,  in  the  whole  conception  of  city  life  and 
the  manihre  cVetre  of  the  population,  is  far  greater.  With 
the  exception  of  the  principal  boulevards  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  recently  completed  "  Madeleine  "  and  its  then 
recently  established  flower-market,  the  streets  were  still 
traversed  by  tilthy  and  malodorous  open  ditches,  which 
did,  more  or  less  imperfectly,  the  duty  of  sew^ers,  and  Paris 
still  deserves  its  name  of  "Mudtown."  Wretched  little 
oil-lamps,  suspended  on  ropes  stretched  across  the  streets, 
barely  served  to  make  darkness  visible.  Water  was  still 
carried,  at  so  much  the  bucket,  up  the  interminable  stair- 
cases of  the  Parisian  houses  by  stalwart  Auvergnats,  who 
came  from  their  mountains  to  do  a  work  more  severe  than 
the  Parisians  could  do  for  themselves. 

But  another  specialty,  which  very  forcibly  struck  me, 
and  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  any  survival  of  ways  and 
habits  obsolete  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  was  the 
remarkable  manner  in  which  the  political  life  of  the  hour, 
with  its  emotions,  o})inions,  and  passions,  Avas  enacted,  so 
to  speak,  on  the  stage  of  the  streets,  as  a  drama  is  present- 
ed on  the  boards  of  a  theatre.  Truly  he  who  ran  through 
the  streets  of  Paris  in  those  days  might  read,  and,  indeed, 
could  not  help  reading,  the  reflection  and  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  political  divisions  and  ])assions  which  animated 
the  reign  of  the  hounjeoln  king,  and  ended  by  destroy- 
ing it. 

Antl  in  this  respect  the  time  of  my  first  visit  to  Paris 
was  a  very  interesting  one.  Tlie  Parisian  world  was,  of 
course,  divided  into  MunarcliiHts  and  liepublieans,  the  lat- 
ter of  whom  laboreil  under  the  imputation,  in  some  cases 
probably  unjust,  but  in  more  entirely  merited  (as  in  cer- 
tain other  more  modern  instances),  of  being  willing  and 


184  WHAT   1   KEMEMBER. 

ready  to  bring  their  theories  into  practice  by  perpetrating 
or  conniving  at  any  odious  monstrosity  of  crime,  violence, 
and  bloodshed.  The  Fieschi  incident  had  recently  en- 
lightened the  world  on  the  justice  of  such  accusations. 

But  the  Monarchists  were  more  amusingly  divided  into 
"  Parceque  Bourbon,"  supporters  of  the  existing  regime, 
and  "  Quoique  Bourbon,"  tolerators  of  it.  The  former, 
of  course,  would  have  preferred  the  white  flag  and  Charles 
Dix  ;  but  failing  the  possibility  of  such  a  return  to  the 
old  ways,  were  content  to  live  under  the  rule  of  a  sovereign 
who,  though  not  the  legitimate  monarch  by  right  divine, 
was  at  least  a  scion  of  the  old  legitimate  race.  The 
"  Quoique  Bourbon  "  partisans  were  the  men  who,  deny- 
incr  all  ricrht  to  the  throne  save  that  which  emanated  from 
the  Avill  of  the  people,  were  yet  Monarchists  from  their 
well-rooted  dread  of  the  intolerable  evils  which  Republi- 
canism had  brought,  and,  as  they  were  convinced,  would 
bring  again  upon  France,  and  were  therefore  contented  to 
support  the  bourgeois  monarchy  "although"  the  man  on 
the  throne  was  an  undeniable  Bourbon. 

But  what  made  the  streets,  the  boulevards,  the  Champs 
Elysees,  and  especially  the  Tuileries  garden  peculiarly 
amusing  to  a  stranger,  was  the  circumstance  that  the  Pa- 
risians all  got  themselves  up  with  strict  attention  to  the 
recognized  costume  proper  to  their  political  party.  The 
Legitimist,  the  '■'■Quoique  Bourbon^  bourgeois  (very  prob- 
ably in  the  uniform  of  the  then  immensely  popular  Nation- 
al Guard),  and  the  Republican  in  his  appropriate  bandit- 
shaped  hat  and  coat  with  exaggeratedly  large  lappels,  or 
draped  picturesquely  in  the  folds  of  a  cloak,  after  a 
fashion  borrowed  from  the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  were 
all  distinguishable  at  a  glance.  It  was  then  that  deli- 
ciously  graphic  line  (I  forget  who  wrote  it)  "  I'^eignons 
dfeindre  djin  de  mieu.r  dlssimuler''''  was  applied  to  char- 
acterize the  conspirator-like  attitudes  it  pleased  these 
gentlemen  to  assume. 

The  truth  was  that  Paris  was  still  very  much  afraid  of 
them.  I  remember  the  infinite  glee,  and  the  outpouring 
of  ridicule,  Avhich  hailed  the  dispersion  of  a  Republican 
"demonstration"  (the  reader  will  forgive  the  anachro- 


AT   PARIS.  185 

nism  of  the  phrase),  at  the  Porte  St.  Martin,  by  the  judi- 
cious use  of  a  powerful  fire-engine.  The  heroes  of  the 
drapeau  ronge  had  boasted  they  would  stand  their  ground 
against  any  charge  of  soldiery.  Perhaps  they  Avould  have 
done  so.  But  the  helter-skelter  that  ensued  on  the  first 
well-directed  jet  of  cold  water  from  the  pipe  of  a  fire- 
engine  furnished  Paris  with  laufjhter  for  days  afterwards. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  Paris,  not  unreasonably,  feared  them. 
Secret  conspiracy  is  always  an  ugly  enemy  to  deal  with. 
And  no  violence  of  mere  speculative  opinion  would  have 
sufliced,  had  fear  been  absent,  to  cause  the  very  marked 
repulsion  with  which  all  the  Parisians,  who  had  anything 
to  lose,  in  that  day  regarded  their  Republican  fellow- 
citizens. 

Assuredly  the  Conservatives  of  the  Parisian  Avorld  of 
1835  were  not  "the  stupid  party."  Both  in  their  news- 
papers, and  other  ephemeral  literature,  and  in  the  never- 
ending  succession  of  current  mots  and  jokes  which  circu- 
lated in  the  Parisian  salojis,  they  had  the  pull  very  decid- 
edly. I  remember  some  words  of  a  parody  on  one  of  the 
Republican  songs  of  the  day,  which  had  an  immense  vogue 
at  that  time.  "0«  dev rait  planter  le  chene,''^  it  ran,  " pour 
Varbre  de  la  Ubcrt'c "  (it  will  be  remembered  that  planting 
"trees  of  liberty  "  was  one  of  the  coninion  and  more  harm- 
less "demonstrations"  of  the  Republican  party).  " /iScs 
glands  nouriraient  sans  peine  les  cochons  qui  Font  plantL'''* 
And  the  burden  of  the  original  which  ran,  '■^  3Ionrir  pour 
la  patrie,  (Teat  le  sort  le  plus  beau  le  plus  digne  d/cnvie,'''' 
was  sufiiciently  and  very  ai)positcly  caricatured  by  the 
slight  change  of  "  Mourir  pour  la  2>fitrie  "  into  "  I'J'ourris 
par  la  patrie,^^  etc. 

To  a  stranger  seeing  Paris  as  I  saw  it,  and  frequenting 
the  houses  which  I  freciuented,  it  seemed  strange  that 
such  a  comnuiiiity  should  have  considered  itself  in  serious 
danger  from  men  wlio  seenu  <1  to  me,  looking  from  such  a 
standpoint,  a  men-  li.indful  (»f  skulking  melodramatic  en- 
thusiasts, jilayiiig  at  consjiiracy  atid  rebellion  rather  tlian 
really  meditating  if.  But  I  w;is  not  at  that  time  fully 
aware  how  entirely  the  real  danger  was  to  be  found  in 
regions  of  I*aris  and  strata  of  its  population  which  were 


186  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

as  entirely  hidden  from  my  observation  as  if  they  had 
been  a  thousand  miles  away.  But  though  I  could  not  see 
the  danger,  I  saw  unmistakably  enough  the  fear  it  inspired 
in  all  classes  of  those  who,  as  I  said  before,  had  anything 
to  lose. 

It  was  this  fear  that  made  the  National  Guard  the 
heroes  of  the  hour.  It  was  impossible  but  that  such  a 
body  of  men — Parisian  shopkeepers  put  into  uniform  (those 
of  them  who  had  condescended  to  wear  it  ;  for  many 
used  to  be  seen  who  contented  themselves  with  girding 
on  a  sabre  and  assuming  a  firelock,  while  others  would  go 
to  the  extent  of  surmounting  the  ordinary  black  coat  with 
the  regulation  military  shako) — should  afford  a  target  for 
many  shafts  of  ridicule.  The  capon-lined  paunches  of  a 
considerable  contingent  of  these  well-to-do  warriors  were 
an  inexhaustible  source  of  not  very  pungent  jokes.  But 
Paris  would  have  been  frightened  out  of  its  wits  at  the 
bare  suggestion  of  suppressing  these  citizen  saviours  of 
society.  Of  course  they  were  petted  at  the  Tuileries. 
No  reception  or  fete  of  any  kind  was  complete  without  a 
large  sprinkling  of  these  shopkeeping  guardsmen,  and 
their  presence  on  such  occasions  was  the  subject  of  an  un- 
failing series  of  historiettes. 

I  remember  an  anecdote  excellently  illustrative  of  the 
time,  which  was  current  in  the  salons  of  the  '■^  Farceque 
Bourbon  "  society  of  the  day.  A  certain  elderly  duchess 
of  the  vieille  rocJie,  a  dainty  little  woman,  very  mignonne, 
whose  exquisite  parure  and  still  more  exquisite  manners 
scented  the  air  at  a  league's  distance,  to  use  the  common 
French  phrase,  with  the  odor  of  the  most  aristocratic  salons 
of  the  Quartier  St.  Germain,  was,  at  one  of  Louis  Phi- 
lippe's Tuileries  receptions,  about  to  take  from  the  tray 
lianded  round  by  a  seiwant  the  last  of  the  ices  which  it 
had  contained,  when  a  huge  outstretched  hand,  Avith  its 
five  wide-spread  fingers,  was  protruded  from  behind  over 
her  shoulder,  and  the  refreshment  of  Avhich  she  was  about 
to  avail  herself  was  seized  by  a  big  National  Guard  with 
the  exclamation,  "  Mifo7ic^e  la  petite  nihreP'' 

Nevertheless,  it  rnay  be  safely  asserted  that  the  little 
duchess,  and  all  the  world  she  moved  in,  would  have  been 


AT  PARIS.  187 

infinitely  more  dismayed  had  they  gone  to  the  Tuileries 
and  seen  no  National  Guards  there. 

Among  the  many  persons  of  note  with  wliom  I  became 
more  or  less  well  acquainted  during  that  month,  no  one 
perhaps  stands  out  more  vividly  in  my  recollection  than 
Chateaubriand.  lie  also,  though  standing  much  aloof 
from  the  noise  and  movement  of  the  political  passions  of 
the  time,  was  an  aristocrat  jusqii'au  bout  des  angles,  in 
appearance,  in  manners,  in  opinions,  and  general  tone  of 
mind.  The  impression  to  this  effect  immediately  produced 
on  one's  first  presentation  was  in  no  degree  due  to  any 
personal  advantages.  He  was  not,  when  I  knew  him,  nor 
do  I  think  he  ever  could  have  been,  a  good-looking  man. 
He  stooped  a  good  deal,  and  his  head  and  shoulders  gave 
me  the  impression  of  being  somewhat  too  large  for  the 
rest  of  his  person.  The  lower  part  of  his  face  too,  was,  I 
thought,  rather  heavy. 

But  his  every  word  and  movement  were  characterized 
by  that  exquisite  courtesy  which  Avas  the  inalienable,  and 
it  would  seem  incommunicable,  specialty  of  the  seigneurs 
of  the  cmcien  regime.  And  in  his  case  the  dignified  bear- 
ing of  the  grand  seigneur  was  tempered  by  a  bonhomie 
which  produced  a  manner  truly  charming. 

And  having  said  all  this,  it  may  seem  to  argue  want  of 
taste  or  want  of  sense  in  myself  to  own,  as  truthfulness 
compels  me  to  do,  that  I  did  not  altogether  like  him.  I 
liad  a  good  deal  of  talk  with  him,  and  that  to  a  youngster 
of  my  years  and  standing  was  in  itself  very  flattering,  and  I 
felt  as  if  I  were  ungrateful  for  not  likiufr  liim.  But  the 
tnitli  in  one  word  is,  that  he  appeared  to  me  to  be  a  "  tink- 
ling cymbal."  I  don't  mean  that  he  was  specially  insincere 
as  regarded  the  person  he  was  talking  to  at  the  moment. 
What  I  do  mean  is,  that  the  man  did  not  seem  to  me  to 
have  a  mind  capable  of  genuine  sincerity  in  the  comluct  of 
its  operations.  He  seemed  to  mo  a  theatrically-minded 
man.  Immciliati-ly  after  making  his  acquaintance  I  read 
the  Geniii  du  ('hrefitnisnir,  and  the  l)Ook  confirmed  my 
impression  of  the  man.  He  hom-stly  int«'inls  to  ])lay  a 
very  good  and  virtuous  i)art,  but  he  is  playing  a  part. 

lie  was  mucli  petted   in   those  days  by  the  men,  and 


188  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

more  especially  by  tlie  women,  of  the  ancien  regime  and 
the  Quartier  St.  Germain.  But  I  suspect  that  he  was  a 
good  deal  quizzed,  and  considered  an  object  of  more  or 
less  good-natured  ridicule  by  the  rest  of  the  Parisian 
world.  I  fancy  that  he  was  in  straitened  circumstances. 
And  the  story  went  that  he  and  his  wife  put  all  they  pos- 
sessed into  a  box,  of  which  each  of  them  had  a  key,  and 
took  from  day  to  day  what  they  needed,  till  one  fine  day 
they  met  over  the  empty  box  with  no  little  surprise  and 
dismay. 

Chateaubriand  thought  he  understood  English  well,  and 
rather  piqued  himself  upon  the  accomplishment.  But  I 
well  remember  his  one  day  asking  me  to  explain  to  him 
the  construction  of  the  sentence,  "  Let  but  the  cheat  en- 
dure, I  ask  not  aught  beside."  My  efforts  to  do  so  during 
the  best  part  of  half  an  hour  ended  in  entire  failure. 

He  was  in  those  days  reading  in  Madame  Recamier's 
scdoti  at  the  Abbaye-aux-Bois  (in  which  building  my 
mother's  friend.  Miss  Clarke,  also  had  her  residence),  those 
celebrated  JIhnoires  iVOutretoinhe  of  which  all  Paris,  or 
at  least  all  literary  and  political  Paris,  was  talking.  Im- 
mense efforts  were  made  by  all  kinds  of  notabilities  to  ob- 
tain an  admission  to  these  readings.  But  the  favored  ones 
had  been  very  few.  And  my  mother  was  proportionably 
delighted  at  the  arrangement  that  a  reading  should  be 
given  expressly  for  her  benefit.  M.  de  Chateaubriand 
had  ceased  these  seances  for  the  nonce,  and  the  gentleman 
who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  reading  for  him  had  left 
Paris.  But  by  the  kindness  of  Miss  Clarke  and  Madame 
Pecamier,  he  was  induced  to  give  a  sitting  at  the  Abbaye 
expressly  for  my  mother.  This  arrangement  had  been 
made  before  I  reached  Paris,  and  I  consequently,  to  my 
great  regret,  was  not  one  of  the  very  select  party.  My 
mother  was  accompanied  by  my  sisters  only.  I  benefited, 
however,  in  my  tuni  by  the  acquaintance  tlius  formed,  and 
subsequently  passed  more  than  one  evening  in  Madame  Re- 
camier's salon  at  the  Abbaye-aux-Bois  in  the  Rue  du  Bac. 

My  mother,  in  her  book  on  "  Paris  and  the  Parisians," 
writes  of  that  reading  as  follows  :  "  The  party  assembled 
at  Madame  Recamier's  on  this  occasion  did  not,  I  think, 


AT   PARIS.  18y 

exceed  seventeen,  including  Madame  Recaraier  and  M.  de 
Cliateaubriand.  Most  of  these  had  been  present  at  for- 
mer readinccs.  The  Duchesses  de  Larochefoucakl  and  de 
Xoailles,  and  one  or  two  other  noble  ladies,  were  among 
them.  And  I  felt  it  was  a  proof  that  genius  was  of  no 
party  when  I  saw  a  granddaughter  of  General  Lafayette 
enter  amons:  us.  She  is  married  to  a  srentleman  who  is 
said  to  be  of  the  extreme  cote  gauche.^''  The  passage  of 
the  "Meraoires"  selected  for  the  evening's  reading  was  the 
account  of  the  author's  memorable  trip  to  Prague  to  visit 
the  royal  exiles.  "  Many  passages,"  writes  my  mother, 
"  made  a  profound  impression  on  my  fancy  and  on  my 
memory,  and  I  think  I  could  give  a  better  account  of 
some  of  the  scenes  described  than  I  should  feel  justified  in 
doing,  as  long  as  the  noble  author  chooses  to  keep  them 
from  the  public  eye.  There  were  touches  that  made  us 
wee)>  abundantly  ;  and  then  he  changed  the  ke}",  and  gave 
us  the  prettiest,  the  most  gracious,  the  most  smiling  pict- 
ure of  the  young  princess  and  her  brother  that  it  was  pos- 
sible for  pen  to  trace.  And  I  could  have  said,  as  one  does 
in  seeing  a  clever  portrait,  *  That  is  a  likeness,  I'll  be 
sworn  for  it.' " 

It  may  be  seen  from  the  above  passage,  and  from  some 
others  in  my  mother's  book  on  "Paris  and  the  Parisians," 
that  her  estimate  of  the  man  Chateaubriand  was  a  sorae- 
Av])at  higher  one  than  that  which  I  have  expressed  in  the 
]ireceding  ])ages.  She  was  under  the  influence  of  the  ex- 
ceeding cliarm  of  his  exquisite  manmr.  lint  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage,  which  I  am  tempted  to  transcribe  hy  the 
curious  light  it  throws  on  the  genesis  of  tlie  present  lite- 
rary history  of  France,  I  can  more  entirely  subscribe  to 
the  opini(»ns  expressed: 

"The  active,  busy,  bustling  politicians  of  the  hour  have 
succeeded  in  thrusting  everything  else  out  of  place,  and 
themselves  into  it.  One  dynasty  has  been  overthrown, 
and  another  esfablislied  ;  old  laws  have  been  abrogated, 
and  Iminlicds  of  new  ones  fonned  ;  heri'ditary  nobles  have 
been  liisinherited,  and  little  men  made  great.  JJut  amidst 
this  plenitude  of  destructiveness,  they  have  not  yet  con- 
trived to  make  any  one  of  tiie  puny  literary  reputations 


190  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

of  the  day  weigh  down  the  renown  of  those  who  have 
never  lent  their  voices  to  the  cause  of  treason,  regicide, 
rebellion,  or  obscenity.  The  literary  reputations  both  of 
Chateaubriand  and  Lamartine  stand  higher  beyond  all 
comparison  than  those  of  any  other  living  French  authors. 
Yet  the  first,  with  all  his  genius,  has  often  suffered  his 
imagination  to  run  riot  ;  and  the  last  has  only  given  to 
the  public  the  leisure  of  his  literary  life.  But  both  of 
them  are  men  of  honor  and  principle,  as  well  as  men  of 
genius  ;  and  it  comforts  one's  human  nature  to  see  that 
these  qualities  will  keep  themselves  aloft,  despite  what- 
ever squally  winds  may  blow,  or  blustering  floods  assail 
them.  That  both  Chateaubriand  and  Lamartine  belong 
rather  to  the  imaginative  than  to  the  positif  class  cannot 
be  denied;  but  they  are  renowned  throughout  the  world, 
and  France  is  proud  of  them.  The  most  curious  literary 
speculations,  however,  suggested  by  the  present  state  of 
letters  in  this  country  are  not  respecting  authors  such  as 
these.  They  speak  for  themselves,  and  all  the  world 
knoAVs  them  and  their  position.  The  circumstance  de- 
cidedly the  most  worthy  of  remark  in  the  literature  of 
France  at  the  present  time  is  the  effect  which  the  last 
revolution  appears  .to  have  produced.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  history,  to  which  both  Thiers  .(?)*  and  Mignet  have 
added  something  that  may  live,  notwithstanding  their  very 
defective  philosophy,  no  single  w^ork  has  appeared  since 
the  Revolution  of  1830  which  has  obtained  a  substantial, 
elevated,  and  generally  acknowledged  reputation  for  any 
author  unknown  before  that  ])eriod — not  even  among  all 
the  unbridled  ebullitions  of  imagination,  though  restrained 
neither  by  decorum,  ])rinciple,  nor  taste.  Not  even  here, 
except  from  one  female  pen,  which  might  become,  were 
it  the  pleasure  of  the  hand  that  wields  it,  the  first  now  ex- 
tant in  the  world  of  fiction"  (of  course,  Georges  Sand  is 
alluded  to),  "  has  anything  appeared  likely  to  survive  its 
author.  Nor  is  there  any  writer  who  during  the  same 
period  has  raised  himself  to  that  station  in  society  by 
means  of  his  literary  productions   which  is  so  universally 

*  My  query. 


AT   PARIS.  191 

accorded  to  all  who  have  acquired  high  literary  celebrity 
in  any  country. 

"  The  name  of  Guizot  was  too  well  known  before  the 
Revolution  for  these  ol)seivations  to  have  any  reference 
tohira."  (Cousin  should  not  have  been  forgotten.)  "And 
however  much  he  may  have  distinguished  himself  since 
July,  1830,  his  reputation  was  made  before.  There  are, 
however,  little  writers  in  prodigious  abundance.  .  .  .Never, 
I  believe,  was  there  any  period  in  which  the  printing- 
presses  of  France  worked  so  hard  as  at  present.  The  Rev- 
olution of  1830  seems  to  have  set  all  the  minor  spirits  in 
motion.  There  is  scarcely  a  boy  so  insignificant,  or  a 
Avorkman  so  unlearned,  as  to  doubt  his  having  the  power 
and  the  right  to  instruct  the  world.  .  .  .  To  me,  I  con- 
fess, it  is  perfectly  astonishing  that  any  one  can  be  found 
to  class  the  writers  of  this  restless  clique  as  '  the  literary 
men  of  France.'  ...  Do  not,  however,  believe  me  guilty 
of  such  presumption  as  to  give  vou  my  own  unsupported 
judgment  as  to  the  position  which  this  'new  school,'  as 
the  decousu  folks  always  call  themselves,  hold  in  the  pub- 
lic esteem.  My  opinion  on  this  subject  is  the  result  of 
careful  inquiry  among  those  who  are  most  competent  to 
give  information  respecting  it.  When  the  names  of  such 
as  are  best  known  among  this  class  of  authors  are  men- 
tioned in  society,  let  the  politics  of  the  circle  be  w^hat  they 
may,  they  are  constantly  spoken  of  as  a  pariah  caste  that 
must  be  kept  apart. 

"  '  Do  you  know ?'  has  been  a  <juestion  I  have  re- 
peatedly asked  resjjecting  a  person  whose  name  is  cited 
in  England  as  the  most  esteemed  French  writer  of  the 
age — and  so  cited,  moreover,  to  itrove  the  low  standard 
of  French  taste  and  principle. 

"  '  No,  madame,'  has  been  invariably  the  cold  answer. 

"  '  Or ?' 

"  *  No  ;  he  is  not  in  society.' 

«  '  Or ?' 

"  '  Oh,  no  !  His  works  live  an  hoiir — (oo  long — and  are 
forgotten.'  " 

Now,  are  tin-  wriltrs  of  French  literature  of  the  present 
day,  whose  names  will  at  once  present  themselves  to  every 


192  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

reader's  mind,  to  be  deemed  superior  to  those  of  the  time  of 
Louis  Philippe,  who  "  lent  their  voices  to  the  cause  of  trea- 
son, regicide,  rebellion,  or  obscenity,"  and  were  unrestrained 
by  either  "decorum,  principle,  or  taste?"  For  it  is  most 
assuredly  no  longer  true  that  the  writers  in  question  are 
held  to  be  a  "  pariah  caste,"  or  that  they  are  not  known 
and  sought  by  "society."  The  facilis  decensiis  progress 
of  the  half-century  that  has  elapsed  since  the  cited  pas- 
sages were  written  is  certainly  remarkable. 

There  is  one  name,  however,  which  cannot  be  simply 
classed  as  one  of  the  decoiisus.  Victor  Hugo  had  already 
at  that  day  made  a  European  reputation.  But  the  fol- 
lowing passage  about  him  from  my  mother's  book  on 
"  Paris  and  the  Parisians"  is  so  curious,  and  to  the  pres- 
ent generation  must  appear  so,  one  may  almost  say,  mon- 
strous, that  it  is  well  worth  while  to  reproduce  it. 

"  I  have  before  stated,"  she  writes,  "  that  I  have  uni- 
formly heard  the  whole  of  the  decousu  school  of  authors 
spoken  of  with  unmitigated  contempt,  and  that  not  only 
by  the  venerable  advocates  for  the  bon  vieux  temps,  but 
also,  and  equally,  by  the  distinguished  men  of  the  pres- 
ent day — distinguished  both  by  position  and  ability.  Re- 
specting Victor  Hugo,  the  only  one  of  the  tribe  to  which 
I  allude  who  has  been  sufficiently  read  in  England  to  jus- 
tify his  being  classed  by  us  as  a  person  of  general  celeb- 
rity, the  feeling  is  more  remarkable  still.  I  have  never 
mentioned  him  or  his  works  to  any  person  of  good  moral 
feeling  or  cultivated  mind  who  did  not  appear  to  shrink 
from  according  him  even  the  degree  of  reputation  that 
those  who  are  received  as  authority  among  our  own  cities 
have  been  disposed  to  allow  him.  /  might  say  that  of 
him  France  seems  to  be  ashamed.''''  (^ly  italics.)  " '  Per- 
mit me  to  assure  you,'  said  one  gentleman,  gravely  and 
earnestly,  '  that  no  idea  was  ever  more  entirely  and  alto- 
gether erroneous  than  that  of  supposing  that  Victor  Hugo 
and  his  ]>roduction8  can  be  looked  on  as  a  sort  of  type  or 
81)ecimen  of  the  literature  of  France  at  the  present  hour. 
He  is  the  head  of  a  sect,  the  high  priest  of  a  congregation 
who  have  abolished  every  law,  moral  and  intellectual,  by 
which  the  efforts  of  the  human  mind  have  hitherto  been 


AT  PARIS.  193 

regulated.  He  has  attained  this  pre-eminence,  and  I  trust 
that  no  other  will  arise  to  dispute  it  with  him.  But  Vic- 
tor Hugo  is  NOT  a  popular  French  author.'  " 

My  recollections  of  all  that  I  heard  in  Paris,  and  ray- 
knowledge  of  the  circles  (more  than  one)  in  which  ray 
mother  used  to  live,  enable  me  to  testify  to  the  absolute 
truth  of  the  above  representation  of  the  prevalent  Parisian 
feeling  at  that  day  respecting  Victor  Hugo.  Yet  he  had 
then  published  his  "  Lyrics,"  "  Notre  Dame  de  Paris,"  and 
the  most  notable  of  his  dramas  ;  and  I  think  no  such  won- 
derful change  of  national  opinion  and  sentiment  as  the 
change  from  the  above  estimate  to  that  now  universally 
I'ccognized  in  France  can  be  met  v.ith  in  the  records  of 
European  literary'  history.  Is  it  not  passing  strange  that 
Avhole  regions  of  Paris  should  have  been  but  the  other  day 
turned,  so  to  speak,  into  a  vast  mausoleiim  to  this  same 
"  pariah,"  and  that  I  myself  should  have  seen,  as  I  did, 
the  Pantheon  not  yet  cleared  from  the  wreck  of  garlands 
and  inscriptions  and  scaffoldings  for  spectators,  all  of 
which  had  been  prepared  to  do  honor  to  his  obsequies? 

But  it  must  be  observed  that  the  violent  repulsion  and 
reprobation  with  which  he  Avas  in  those  days  regarded  by 
all  his  countrymen,  save  the  extreme  and  restless  spirits 
of  the  Republican  party,  cannot  fairly  be  taken  as  the  re- 
sult and  outcome  of  genuine  literary  criticism.  All  liter- 
ary judgments  in  France  were  then  subordinated  to  po- 
litical ]iarty  feeling,  and  that  was  intensified  by  the  most 
fatal  of  all  disqualiiications  for  the  formation  of  sound 
and  equable  estimates  —  by  fear.  All  those  well-to-do 
detesters  of  Victor  Hugo  and  all  liis  works,  the  "Quoique 
Bourbons"  as  well  as  the  *^  Parcequc  Bourbons,"  the  pros- 
perous su]ij)orters  of  the  new  rci/ime  as  well  as  the  regret- 
ful adherents  of  the  old,  livi-d  in  perpetual  fear  of  the 
men  whose  coryi)heus  and  hierophant  was  Victor  Hugo, 
and  felt,  not  without  reason,  that  the  admittedly  rickety 
throne  of  the  citizen  king  and  those  sleek  and  ]>aunchy 
National  (iuardsmcn  ahme  stoixl  between  them  aiid  the 
loss  of  all  tlu'y  held  dearest  in  the  woil<l.  Nevertheless, 
the  contrast  between  the  judgments  atui  tlu'  feeling  of  1835 
and  those  of  fifty  years  later  is  sufliciently  remarkable. 
0  ' 


194  WHAT   I  KEMEMBER. 

Mucli  has  been  said,  especially  in  England,  of  llie  great 
writer's  historical  inaccuracy  in  treating  of  English  mat- 
ters. But  an  anecdote  "which  my  mother  gives  in  her  book 
is  worth  re])roducing  for  the  sake  of  the  evidence  it  gives 
that  in  truth  Victor  Hugo  was  equally  ignorantly  and  care- 
lessly inaccurate  when  speaking  of  home  matters,  on  which, 
at  least,  it  might  have  been  thought  that  he  would  have 
been  better  informed, 

"An  able  lawyer,  and  most  accomplished  gentleman  and 
scholar,  who  holds  a  distinguished  station  in  the  cour 
royale'''  (in  all  probability  Berryer),  "took  us  to  see  the 
Palais  do  Justice.  Having  shown  us  the  chamber  where 
criminal  trials  are  carried  on,  he  observed  that  this  was 
the  room  described  by  Victor  Hugo  in  his  romance,  add- 
ing, '  He  was,  however,  mistaken  here,  as  in  most  places 
where  he  affects  a  knowledge  of  the  times  of  which  he 
writes.  In  the  reign  of  Louis  XI.  no  criminal  trials  ever 
took  place  within  tlie  walls  of  this  building,  and  all  the 
ceremonies  as  described  by  him  resemble  much  more  a 
trial  of  yesterday  than  of  the  age  at  which  he  dates  his 
tale,'  " 

Georges  Sand,  certainly  upon  the  whole  the  most  re- 
markable literary  figure  in  the  French  world  at  the  time 
of  my  visit  to  Paris,  vidi  tantum.  That  I  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  on  various  occasions.  She  was  a  person 
on  wliom,  quite  apart  from  her  literary  celebrity,  the  eye 
of  any  observer  would  have  dwelt  with  some  speculative 
curiosity.  She  was  hardly  to  be  called  handsome,  or  even 
pretty,  but  was  still  decidedly  attractive.  The  large  eyes 
a  Jieur  de  tete,  and  the  mobile  and  remarkably  expressive 
mouth  rendered  the  face  both  attractive  and  stimulative 
of  interest.  The  features  were  unmistakably  refined  in 
character  and  ex])ression,  and  the  mouth — the  most  trust- 
worthy evidence-giving  feature  upon  that  point — was  de- 
cidedly that  of  a  high-bred  Avoman, 

She  Avas  at  that  period  of  her  varied  career  acting  as 
well  as  writing  in  a  manner  which  attracted  the  attention 
of  Louis  Philippe's  very  vigilant  and  abnormally  suspicious 
])olico.  She  had  recently  left  Pai'is  for  an  excursion  in  the 
ttte-d-tete  com]>any  of  the  well-kjiown  Abbe  de  Lamenais, 


AT  PARIS.  195 

-who  was  at  that  time  giving  much  trouble  and  disquietude 
to  tlie  official  guardians  of  the  altar  and  the  throne.  His 
comings  and  goings  were  the  object  of  vigilant  supervision 
on  the  part  of  the  police  authorities  ;  and  it  so  happened 
by  a  strange  chance  that  the  report  of  the  official  observ- 
ers of  this  little  excursion,  which  reached  the  official  head- 
quarters, reached  me  also.  And  all  the  watchers  had  to 
tell  was  that  the  abbe  and  the  lady  his  companion  shared 
the  same  bedchamber  at  the  end  of  their  first  day's  joui'- 
ney.  Now  the  Abbe  de  Lamenais  was  an  old,  little,  wiz- 
ened, dried-up,  dirty — very  dirty — priest.  It  is  possible, 
but  I  have  reason  to  think  highly  improbable,  that  econ- 
omy was  the  motive  of  this  strange  chamber  comradcslii]>. 
But  I  was  then,  and  am  still,  very  strongly  convinced  that 
the  sole  purpose  of  it  was  to  outrage  the  lady's  (and  the 
priest's)  censors,  to  act  differently  from  everybody  else, 
and  to  give  evidence  of  superiority  to  conventionality  and 
"  prejudice." 

I  wrote  very  cai'cfully  and  conscientiously,  some  few 
years  subsequently,  a  long  article  on  Georges  Sand  in  the 
Foreign  Quarterly  which  attracted  some  attention  at  the 
time.  I  should  write  in  many  respects  differently  now. 
The  lady  in  subsc({uent  years  put  a  considerable  quantity 
of  "water  into  her  wine" — and  tliough  not  altogether  in 
tlie  same  sense — I  have  done  so  too. 

To  both  Guizot  and  Thiers  I  had  the  honor  of  being  in- 
troduced. If  I  were  to  say  that  neither  of  them  seemed 
to  me  to  have  cntirelv  the  manners  and  bearinor  of  a  ijen- 
tleman,  I  shouhl  probably  be  tliought  to  be  talking  affected 
and  offensive  nonsense.  And  I  do  not  mean  to  say  so  in 
the  ordinary  English  every-4lay  use  of  the  term.  What  I 
mean  is  that  they  were  both  of  them  very  far  from  pos- 
sessing that  grand-scigiu'ur  manner  which,  as  I  have  said, 
so  markedly  distinguished  Chateaubriand  and  many  an- 
other Frenchman  whom  I  knew  in  those  days  ;  by  no 
means  all  of  them  belonging  to  the  aristocratic  caste, 
jiarty,  or  class,  (iuizot  looked  for  all  the  world  like  a 
village  schoolmaster,  and  seemed  to  me  to  have  miu-li 
t])e  ni.'inner  of  one.  lie  stooped  a  good  deal,  ami  poke<| 
his  In. el   l<>i'u;u'l.      !   reiiiriiilM  r   lliiiikinLT   dial    lie  \sas,  in 


196  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

manner,  more  like  an  Englishman  than  a  Frenchman;  and 
tliat  it  was  a  matter  of  curious  speculation  to  me  at  the 
time,  whether  this  effect  might  have  been  produced  by 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  Protestant,  and  an  earnest  one,  in- 
stead of  being  a  Roman  Catholic.  Possibly  my  impres- 
sion of  his  schoolmaster-like  deportment  may  liave  been 
the  result  of  his  manner  to  me,  I  was  but  a  boy,  with  no 
claim  at  all  to  the  honor  of  being  noticed  by  him  in  any 
way.  But  I  remember  being  struck  by  the  difference  of 
the  manner  of  Thiers  in  this  respect. 

All  my  prejudices  and  all  that  I  knew  of  the  two  men 
disposed  me  to  feel  far  the  higher  respect  for  Guizot. 
And  my  opinion  still  is  that  I  judged  rightly,  whether  in 
respect  to  character  or  intellectual  capacity.  Not  but  that 
I  thought  and  think  that  Thiers  was  the  brighter  and,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  the  cleverer  man  of  the 
two.  There  was  no  brightness  about  the  premier  abord 
of  Guizot,  though  doubtless  a  longer  and  more  intimate 
acquaintance  than  was  granted  to  me  would  have  corrected 
this  impression.  But  Thiers  was,  from  the  bow  with  Avhicli 
he  first  received  you  to  the  latest  word  you  heard  from 
him,  all  brightness.  Of  dignity  he  had  nothing  at  all. 
If  Guizot  might  have  been  taken  for  a  schoolmaster, 
Thiers  might  have  been  mistaken  for  a  stockbroker,  say, 
a  prosjDcrous,  busy,  bustling,  cheery  stockbroker,  or  any 
such  man  of  business.  And  if  Guizot  gave  one  the  im- 
pression of  being  more  English  than  French,  his  great 
rival  was  unmistakably  and  intensely  French.  I  have  no 
recollection  of  having  much  enjoyed  my  interview  with 
M.  Guizot.  But  I  was  happy  during  more  than  one  even- 
ing spent  in  Thiers'  house  in  Paris. 

Of  Madame  Recamier  I  should  have  said  the  few  words 
I  have  to  say  about  the  impression  so  celebrated  a  woman 
produced  upon  me,  when  I  was  speaking  of  her  salo)i  in  a 
])revious  page.  But  they  may  be  just  as  well  said  here. 
Of  the  beauty  for  which  she  was  famed  throughout  Europe, 
of  course  little  remained  when  I  saw  her  in  1835.  But 
the  grace,  which  was  in  a  far  greater  degree  unique,  re- 
mained in  its  entirety.  I  think  she  was  the  most  grace- 
fully moving  woman  I  ever  saw.     The  expression  of  her 


AT  PARIS.  197 

face  had  become  perhaps  a  little  sad,  but  it  was  sweet,  at- 
tractive, full  of  the  promise  of  all  good  things  of  heart 
and  mind.  If  I  were  to  say  that  her  management  of  her 
salon  might  be  compared  in  the  perfection  of  its  tactical 
success  with  that  of  a  successful  general  on  the  field,  it 
mio-ht  crive  the  idea  that  management  and  discipline  were 
visible,  which  would  be  a  very  erroneous  one.  That  the 
perfection  of  art  lies  in  the  concealment  of  it,  was  never 
more  admirably  evidenced  than  in  her  "administration" 
as  a  reine  de  salon.  A  close  observer  might  perceive,  or, 
perhaps,  rather  divine  only,  that  all  was  marshalled,  or- 
dered, and  designed.  Yet  all  was,  on  the  part  at  least  of 
the  guests,  unconstrained  ease  and  enjoyment.  That  much 
native  talent,  much  knowledge  of  men  and  women,  and 
exquisite  tact  must  have  been  needed  for  this  perfection 
in  the  art  of  tenir  salon  cannot  be  denied.  Finally  it  may 
be  said  that  a  great  variety  of  historiettes,  old  and  new, 
left  me  with  the  unhesitating  conviction  that  despite  the 
unfailing  tribute  to  an  eclat  such  as  hers,  of  malicious  in- 
sinuations (all  already  ancient  history  at  the  time  of  which 
I  am  writing),  jNIadame  Recaraier  was  and  had  always 
been  a  truly  good  and  virtuous  Christian  woman. 

Miss  Clarke,  also,  as  has  been  said  an  inmate  of  the 
Abbaye-aux-Bois,  and  a  close  friend  of  her  celebrated 
neighbor,  I  became  intimate  with.  She  was  an  eccentric 
little  lad}',  very  plain,  brimful  of  talent,  who  had  achieved 
the  wonderful  triuniidi  of  living,  in  the  midst  of  the  choic- 
est society  of  I*aris,  her  own  life  after  her  own  fashion, 
which  was  often  in  many  respects  a  very  different  fashion 
from  that  of  those  around  her,  without  incurring  any  of 
the  ridicule  or  anathemas  with  which  such  society  is  wont 
to  visit  eccentricity.  I  remember  a  good-naturedly  re- 
counted k'gfiid,  to  the  cffi'ct  that  she  used  to  have  hor 
chemises,  which  were  constructed  after  the  maniKr  of 
those  worn  by  the  gran<lmothers  of  the  present  genera- 
tion, marked  with  \u-r  iiainc  in  full  on  the  front  flap  of 
them  ;  and  that  this  ilaj)  was  often  exhibitetl  over  the 
bosom  of  her  dress  in  front  !  She  too  was  a  rcine  de  salon 
after  iier  fasliion — a  somewhat  different  one  from  that  of 
her  elegant  neighbor.     There  was,  at  all  events,  a  greater 


108  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

and  more  piquant  variety  to  be  found  in  it.  All  those  to 
be  found  there  were,  however,  worth  seeing  or  hearing 
for  one  reason  or  another.  Iler  method  of  ruling  the  fre- 
quenters of  licr  receptions  might  be  described  as  simply 
shakinir  the  heteroijreneous  elements  well  together.  But 
it  answered  so  far  as  to  make  an  evening  at  her  house  un- 
failingly amusing  and  enjoj^able.  She  was  very,  and  I 
think  I  may  say,  universally  popular.  She  subsequently 
married  M.  Mohl,  the  well-known  Orientalist,  whom  I  re- 
member to  have  always  found,  when  calling  upon  him  on 
various  occasions,  sitting  in  a  tiny  cabinet  so  absolutely 
surrounded  by  books,  built  up  into  walls  all  round  him, 
as  to  suggest  almost  inevitably  the  idea  of  a  moiise  in  a 
cheese,  eating  out  the  hollow  it  lived  in. 

Referring  to  my  mother's  book  on  "Paris  and  the  Pa- 
risians" for  those  extracts  from  it  which  I  have  given  in 
the  preceding  pages,  I  find  the  following  passage,  the  sin- 
gular forecast  of  whioli,  and  its  bearing  on  the  present 
state  of  things  in  France,  tempts  me  to  transcribe  it. 
Speaking  in  1835,  and  quoting  the  words  of  a  high  politi- 
cal authority,  whom  she  had  met  "  at  the  house  of  the  beau- 
tiful Princess  B "   (Belgiojoso),  she   writes:  "'You 

know,'  he  said,  *  how  devoted  all  France  was  to  the  em- 
peror, though  the  police  was  somewhat  tight,  and  the  con- 
scriptions heavy.  But  he  had  saved  us  from  a  republic, 
and  we  adored  him.  For  a  few  days,  or  rather  hours,  we 
were  threatened  again  five  years  ago  by  the  same  terrible 
apparition.  The  result  is  that  four  millions  of  armed  men 
stand  ready  to  protect  the  prince  who  chased  it.  Were  it 
to  appear  a  third  time,  which  Heaven  forbid  !  you  may 
depend  upon  it,  that  the  moiiarch  who  should  next  ascend 
the  throne  of  France  mi(jht  play  at  "  lejeu  de  quilles''''  with 
his  subjects  and  no  one  be  found  to  conipjlain!' "  (My  ital- 
ics.) On  the  margin  of  the  page  on  which  this  is  printed 
my  mother  has  written  in  the  copy  of  the  book  before  me, 
"  Vu  et  approum.     Dec.  10,  1853.     F  T." 

The  mention  of  the  Princess  Belgiojoso  in  the  above 
passage  reminds  me  of  a  memorable  evening  which  I 
spent  at  her  house,  and  of  my  witnessing  there  a  singular 
scene,  which  at  the  present  day  may  be  worth  recounting. 


AT  TARIS.  199 

The  amusement  of  the  evening  consisted  in  hearing 
Liszt  and  the  princess  play,  on  two  pianos,  the  whole  of 
the  score  of  Mozart's  "Don  Giovanni."  The  treat  was  a 
doliglitful  one  ;  but  I  dare  say  that  I  should  have  forgot- 
ten it  but  for  iho  finale  of  the  performance.  No  sooner 
was  the  last  note  ended  than  the  nervous  musician  swooned 
and  slid  from  his  seat,  while  the  charming  princess,  in 
whom  apparently  matter  was  less  under  the  dominion  of 
mind,  or  at  least  of  nerve,  was  as  fresh  as  at  the  begin- 
ning. 

My  month  at  Paris,  with  its  poor  thirty  times  twenty- 
four  hours,  was  all  too  short  for  half  of  what  I  strove  to 
cram  into  it.  And  of  course  I  could  please  myself  with 
an  intinitude  of  recollections  of  things  and  ])laces,  and  oc- 
casions, and  above  all,  persons,  who  doubtless  contributed 
more  to  the  making  of  that  month  one  of  the  pleasantest 
I  have  to  look  back  on  than  any  of  the  celebrities  whom 
I  had  the  good-fortune  to  meet.  But  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  such  rambling  reminiscences  would  be  equally 
pleasing  to  my  readers. 

There  is  one  anecdote,  however,  of  a  well-remembered 
day,  which  I  must  tell,  before  bringing  the  record  of  my 
first  visit  to  Paris  to  a  conclusion. 

A  picnic  party — rather  a  large  one,  and  consisting  of 
men  and  women  of  various  nationalities — had  been  organ- 
ized for  a  visit  to  the  famous  and  historic  woods  of  Mont- 
morenci.  Wc  hail  a  delightful  day,  and  my  memory  is 
still,  after  half  a  century,  crowded  Avith  very  vivid  re- 
membrances of  the  ])lacc's  and  ])ersons,  an<l  things  done 
and  things  sai<l,  which  rendered  it  .such.  l>ut  as  for  the 
places,  have  they  not  been  tlescribed  and  redescribcd  in 
all  the  guide-books  that  were  ever  written  ?  And  as  for 
the  persons,  alas!  the  tongues  that  chattered  so  fast  and 
so  pleasantly  are  still  for  evermore,  and  the  eyes  that 
shone  so  brightly  arc  dim,  if  not,  as  in  most  instances, 
dosed  in  their  last  sleep!  Hut  it  is  oidy  with  ,iii  incident 
that  formed  ihi;  fitntle  of  our  day  there  that  I  mean  to 
troulth-  the  reailer. 

Tiiaekeray,  then  an  unknown  young  man,  with  wiioni  I 
that  day  became  acquainted  for  the  first  lime,  was  one  of 


200  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

our  party.  Some  half-dozen  of  us — the  boys  of  the  party 
— thinking  that  a  day  at  IMontmoronci  coukl  not  be  passed 
selon  les  prescriptions  without  a  cavalcade  on  the  famous 
donkeys,  selected  a  number  of  them,  and  proceeded  to 
urge  the  strongly  conservative  animals  probably  into 
places,  and  certainly  into  paces,  for  which  their  lifelong 
training  had  in  no  wise  prepared  them.  A  variety  of 
struggles  between  man  and  beast  ensued  with  divers 
vicissitudes  of  victory,  till  at  last  Thackeray's  donkey, 
which  certainly  must  have  been  a  plucky  and  vigorous 
beast,  succeeded  in  tossing  his  rider  clean  over  his  Tong 
ears,  and,  as  ill-luck  would  have  it,  depositing  him  on  a 
heap  of  newly-broken  stones.  The  fall  was  really  a  severe 
one,  and  at  first  it  was  feared  that  our  picnic  would  have 
a  truly  tragic  conclusion.  But  it  was  soon  ascertained 
that  no  serious  mischief  had  been  done  beyond  that  the 
mark  of  which  the  victim  of  the  accident  bore  on  his  face 
to  his  dying  day. 

I  think  that  when  I  climbed  to  the  banquette  of  the 
Lille  diligence  to  leave  Paris,  on  the  morning  of  the  'Zth 
of  June,  1835,  it  was  the  first  time  that  the  prospect  of  a 
journey  failed  in  any  way  to  compensate  me  for  quitting 
what  I  was  leaving  behind. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

AT    BRUGES. AT   IIADLEY. 

I  LEFT  Paris  a  day  or  two  before  my  father,  raotlicr, 
and  sisters,  though  bound  for  the  same  destination — 
Bruges.  My  object  in  doing  so  appears  to  have  been  to 
get  a  sight  of  some  of  the  towns  of  French  Flanders  by  the 
way.  But  I  was  not  many  days  after  them  in  reaching 
the  Chateau  d'llondt,  outside  the  Porte  St.  Pierre  at 
Bruges  ;  and  there  I  remained,  with  the  exception  of  sun- 
dry visits  to  Ostcnd,  and  two  or  three  rambles  among  the 
Flemish  cities,  till  the  3d  of  October, 

One  used  to  go  from  Bruges  to  Ostcnd  in  those  days  by 
"  Torreborre's "  barge,  which  was  towed  by  a  couple  of 
horses.  There  was  a  lumbering  but  very  roomy  diligence 
drawn  by  three  horses  abreast.  But  the  barge,  though 
yet  slower  than  the  diligence,  was  the  plcasanter  mode  of 
making  the  journey.  The  cost  of  it,  I  Avell  remember, 
was  one  franc  ten  centimes,  which  included  (in  going  by 
the  morning  barge,  Avhich  started,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
at  six  A.M.),  as  much  bread-and-butter  and  really  excellent 
cdfii  an  htit  as  the  traveller  chose  to  consume  —  and  I 
chose  in  those  days  to  consume  a  considerable  quantity. 
What  the  journey  cost  without  any  breakfast,  I  forget,  if 
I  ever  knew.  I  fancy  no  such  contingency  as  any  passen- 
ger declining  his  bread-and-butter  and  coffee  was  contem- 
plated, an<l  that  the  charge  was  always  the  same  Avhether 
you  took  breakfast  or  not.  It  was  not  an  unpleasant  man- 
ner of  travelling,  though  sj)ecially  adapted  for  the  inmates 
of  llie  Castle  of  Indolence.  The  cabin  was  roomy  and 
comfortably  furnished,  and  infinitely  superior  to  the  ac- 
comtnodations  of  any  of  the  Dutch  tnlcschinjts  of  the 
present  day.  One  took  one's  book  with  one.  And  a  cigar 
on  the  well-seated  cabin  roof  was  in  excellent  keeping  with 
0* 


202  WUAT  I  REMEMBER. 

the  lazy  smoothness  of  the  movement,  and  the  flat,  sleepy- 
monotony  of  the  banks. 

And  tlicse  visits  to  Ostcnd  were  A'ery  pleasant.  Consul 
Fauche's  hospitable  door  was  always  open  to  nie,  and  there 
was  usually  sure  to  be  something  pleasant  going  on  within 
it — very  generally  excellent  music.  I  have  already  spoken 
of  Mrs.  Fauche's  charming  voice.  Any  pleasant  English, 
who  might  be  passing  through,  or  spending  the  bathing 
season  at  Ostend,  were  sure  to  be  found  at  the  consul's — 
especialh''  if  they  brought  voices  or  any  musical  disposi- 
tions with  them.  But  Mary  Fauche  herself  was  in  those 
days  a  sufiicient  attraction  to  make  the  whitest-stone  even- 
ing of  all,  that  when  no  other  visitor  was  found  there. 
JVoctes  c(enceque  Deilm  ! 

But  those  pleasant  Ostend  days  were,  before  the  summer 
ended,  overshadoAved  by^  a  tragedy  whit-h  I  will  not  omit 
to  record,  because  the  story  of  it  carries  a  valuable  warn- 
incc  with  it. 

We  had  made  acquaintance  at  I*aris  with  a  Mrs.  Mack- 
intosh and  her  daughter,  very  charming  Scotch  people. 
Mrs.  Mackintosh  was  a  widow,  and  Margaret  was  her  only 
child.  She  was  an  extremely  liandsome  girl,  nineteen  years 
of  age,  and  as  magnificent  a  specimen  of  young  woman- 
hood as  can  be  conceived.  "More  than  common  tall,"  she 
showed  in  her  whole  person  the  development  of  a  Juno, 
enhanced  by  the  vigor,  elasticity,  and  blooming  health  of 
a  Diana.  She  and  her  mother  came  to  Ostend  for  the  bath- 
ing season.  Margaret  was  a  great  swimmer  ;  and  lier  de- 
light was  to  pass  nearly  the  wliole  of  those  hot  July  days 
in  the  water.  Twice,  or  even  thrice  every  day  she  would 
return  to  her  favorite  element.  And  soon  she  began  to 
complain  of  lassitude,  and  to  lose  her  appetite  and  the 
splendor  of  her  complexion.  Oh  !  it  was  the  heat,  which 
really  only  the  constant  stimulus  of  her  bath  and  swim 
could  render  tolerable.  She  was  warned  that  excess  in 
bathing,  especially  in  salt  water,  may  sometimes  be  as 
dangerous  as  any  other  excess,  but  the  young  naiad,  who 
had  never  in  her  life  needed  to  pay  heed  to  any  medical 
word  or  warning,  would  not  believe,  or  would  not  heed. 
And  before  the  Septepiber  was  over  we  followed  poor 


AT  BRUGES.  203 

Margaret  Mackintosh  to  the  little  Ostend  cemetery,  killed 
by  over-bathing  as  decidedly  as  if  she  had  held  her  head 
luider  water. 

This  sad  tragedy  brought  to  a  gloomy  end  a  season 
which  had  been,  if  not  a  very  profitable,  a  very  amusing 
one.  There  was  a  ci-devant  Don  Quixote  sort  of  a  look- 
ing man,  a  Count  Melfort,  whose  young  and  buxom  wife 
boasted  some  strain  of  I  forgot  what  noble  English  blood, 
and  who  used  to  give  the  consul  good  dinners  such  as  ho 
particularly  affected,  which  his  wife  was  neither  asked  nor 
cared  to  share,  though  the  ladies  as  well  as  the  gentlemen 
were  excellent  good  friends.  There  was  a  wealthy  Col- 
onel Dickson  who  also  used  to  give  dinners,  at  one  of 
Avhich,  having  been  present,  I  remember  the  host  fussing 
in  and  out  of  the  room  during  the  quarter  of  an  hour  be- 
fore dinner,  till  at  last  he  rushed  into  the  drawing-room 
with  his  coat-sleeves  drawn  up  to  his  elbows,  horror  and 
despair  in  his  mien  as  he  cried,  "  Great  Heaven  !  the  cook 
has  cut  the  fins  off  the  turbot  !"  If  any  who  partook  of 
that  mutilated  fish  survive  to  this  present  year  of  grace 
(which,  I  fear,  is  hardly  likely  to  be  the  case)  I  am  sure 
they  will  recall  the  scene  which  ensued  on  the  dreadful 
announcement.  There  Avas  the  very  pretty  and  abnormal- 
ly silly  little  banker's  wife,  who  supplied  my  old  friend, 
Cajttain  Smithett,  with  billets  doux  and  fun,  and  who  used 
to  adapt  verses  sent  her  by  a  still  sillier  youthful  adorer 
of  her  own  to  the  purpose  of  expressing  her  own  devotion 
to  (piite  other  swains. 

It  was  a  oueer  and  not  verv  edifving  societv,  exceed- 
ingly  strange,  and  somewhat  bewildering  to  a  lad  fresh 
from  Oxford  wlio  was  making  his  tirst  acquaintance  with 
Continental  ways  and  manners.  All  the  married  couples 
seemed  to  be  continually  dancing  the  figure  of  clutssce 
croisez,  and  I,  who  had  no  wife  of  my  own,  and  was  not 
yet  old  enough  to  know  better,  thought  it  extremely 
amusing. 

When  October  cann',  and  I  had  not  heard  anything  from 
IJirniiiigham  of  the  appujntnient  to  a  mastership  in  tlu' 
school  there,  for  whicii  I  had  bi'cn  all  this  time  waiting, 
I  thought  it  was  time  to  look  uj)  my  IJirmingham  friends 


204  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

and  see  how  matters  stood  there.  At  Birmingham  I  found 
that  the  governors  of  King  Edward's  School  were  still 
shilly-shallying  ;  but  I  heard  enough  to  convince  me  that 
no  new  master  would  be  appointed  till  the  very  fine  new 
building  which  now  ornaments  the  town,  but  was  then  in 
course  of  construction,  should  be  completed. 

Having  become  convinced  of  this,  in  which  it  eventually 
turned  out  that  I  was  right,  it  only  remained  to  me  to  re- 
turn to  Bruges,  with  the  assurance  from  Dr.  Jeune  and 
several  of  the  governors  that  I  and  nobody  else  should 
have  the  mastership  when  the  appointment  should  be 
made.  I  returned  to  Bruges,  passing  one  day  with  the 
dear  Grants  at  Harrow,  and  an  evening  with  my  brother 
Anthony  in  Lomlon  by  the  way,  and  reached  the  Chateau 
d'llondt  on  the  15th  of  October,  to  find  my  father  very 
much  Avorse  than  I  had  left  him.  He  was  in  bed,  and 
was  attended  by  the  Dr.  Ilerbout  of  whom  I  have  before 
spoken.  But  he  Avas  too  evidently  drawing  towards  his 
end  ;  and  after  much  suffering  breathed  his  last  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  23d  of  October,  1B35.  On  the  25th  I  fol- 
lowed his  body  to  the  grave,  close  to  that  of  my  brother 
Henry,  in  the  cemetery  outside  the  Catherine  Gate  of  the 
town. 

The  duty  was  a  very  specially  sad  one.  When  I  fol- 
lowed my  mother  to  the  grave  at  Florence  many  years 
afterwards  my  thoughts  were  far  from  being  as  painfully 
sad,  though  she  was,  I  fear,  the  better-loved  parent  of  the 
two.  She  died  in  a  ripe  old  age  after  a  singularly  happy, 
though  not  untroubled,  life,  during  many  j'ears  of  which 
it  was  permissible  to  me  to  Ix'lieve  that  I  had  had  no 
small  share  in  ministering  to  her  happiness.  It  was  oth- 
erwise in  the  case  of  my  father.  He  was,  and  had  been,  I 
take  it,  for  many  years  a  very  unhappy  man.  All  had 
gone  Avrong  with  him  ;  misfortunes  fell  on  him,  one  on  the 
back  of  the  other.  Yet  I  do  not  think  that  these  mis- 
fortunes were  the  real  and  efficient  causes  of  his  unhappi- 
ness.  I  do  not  see  what  concatenation  of  circumstances 
could  have  made  him  hap])y.  lie  Avas  in  many  respects  a 
singular  man.  Ill-health  and  physical  suffering,  of  course, 
are  great  causes  of  an  unhajipy  life  ;  but  all  suffering  in- 


AT   BRUGES.  205 

valids  are  not  unhappy.  My  fathers  mind  was,  I  think, 
to  a  singular  degree  under  the  dominion  of  his  body.  The 
terrible  irritability  of  his  temper,  which  sometimes  in  his 
latter  years  reached  a  pitch  that  made  one  fear  his  reason 
was,  or  would  become,  unhinged,  was  undoubtedly  due  to 
the  shattering  of  his  nervous  system,  caused  by  the  habitual 
use  of  calomel.  But  it  is  difficult  for  one  who  has  never  had 
a  similar  experience  to  conceive  the  degree  in  which  this 
irritability  made  the  misery  of  all  who  were  called  upon 
habitually  to  come  into  contact  Avith  it.  I  do  not  think  that 
it  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  for  many  years  no 
person  came  into  my  father's  presence  who  did  not  forth- 
with desire  to  escape  from  it.  Of  course,  this  desire  was 
not  yielded  to  by  those  of  his  own  household,  but  they 
were  none  the  less  conscious  of  it.  Happiness,  mirth,  con- 
tentment, pleasant  conversation,  seemed  to  fly  before  him 
as  if  a  malevolent  spirit  emanated  from  him.  And  all  the 
time  no  human  being  was  more  innocent  of  all  malevolence 
towards  his  fellow-creatures  ;  and  he  was  a  man  who  would 
fain  have  been  loved,  and  who  knew  that  he  ^vas  not  loved, 
but  knew  neither  how  to  manifest  his  desire  for  affection 
nor  how  to  conciliate  it. 

I  am  the  more  convinced  that  bodily  ailment  was  the 
causa  causans  of  most,  if  not  of  all,  of  his  unhappy  idio- 
syncrasy, that  I  have  before  me  abundant  evidence  that  as 
a  young  man  he  was  beloved  and  esteemed  by  his  contem- 
poraries and  associates.  I  have  many  letters  from  college 
friends,  fellows  of  New  Cnllege,  his  contemporaries,  sev- 
eral of  them  thanking  him  for  kimlnesses  of  a  more  or  less 
important  kind,  and  all  written  in  a  spirit  of  high  regard 
and  esteem. 

What  so  grievously  changed  him?  I  do  not  believe 
that  he  was  soured  by  pecuniary  misfortune,  though  he 
had  more  than  enough.  His  iirst  great  misfortune  —  the 
marriage  of  his  old  widower  uncle,  whose  heir  he  was  to 
have  l)ecn  —  was,  I  have  the  means  of  knowing,  borne  by 
him  well, bravely,  and  witli  dignify.  I  believe  that  he  was 
destroyed  mind  and  l)()dy  by  calomel,  habittially  used  dur- 
ing long  years, 

Throuuhout  life   he   was   a  laborious   and   industrious 


20G  WHAT  I  KEMEMBER. 

man.  I  have  seen  few  tilings  of  the  kind  with  more  of 
pathos  in  it  than  his  persevering  attempt  to  render  his 
Jabor  of  some  vahie  by  compiling  a  dictionary  of  ecclesi- 
astical terms.  lie  had  quite  sufficient  learning  and  suffi- 
cient industrj'-  to  have  produced  a  useful  book  upon  the 
subject  if  he  had  only  had  the  possibility  of  consulting  the, 
of  course,  almost  innumerable  necessary  authorities.  The 
book  was  published  in  quarto  by  subscription,  and  two  or 
three  parts  of  it  had  been  delivered  to  the  subscribers 
when  death  delivered  him  from  his  thankless  labor  and 
his  subscribers  from  further  demands  on  their  purses.  I 
do  not  suppose  that  any  human  being  purchased  the  book 
because  they  Avished  to  possess  it.  And  truly,  as  I  have 
said,  it  was  a  ])athctic  thing  to  see  him  iu  his  room  at 
Chateau  d'llondt,  ill,  suffering,  striving  with  the  abso- 
lutely miserable,  ridiculously  insufficient  means  he  had 
been  able  with  much  difficulty  to  collect,  to  carry  on  his 
work.  lie  Avas  dying — he  must,  I  think,  have  known  that 
he  was  ;  he  had  not  got  beyond  D  in  his  dictionary;  all 
the  alphabet  was  before  him,  but  he  would  not  give  up; 
he  would  labor  to  the  last.  My  mother  was  laboring  hard, 
and  her  labor  was  earning  all  that  supplied  very  abun- 
dantly the  needs  of  the  whole  family.  And  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  a  painful  but  not  iguoble  feeling  urged  my 
poor  father  to  live  at  least  equally  laborious  days,  even 
though  his  labor  was  profitless. 

Poor  father  !  My  thoughts,  as  I  followed  him  to  the 
grave,  were  that  I  had  not  done  all  that  I  might  have 
done  to  alleviate  the  burden  of  iinha])pine8s  that  was  laid 
upon  him.  Yet,  looking  back  on  it  all  from  the  vantage- 
ground  of  my  own  old  age  (some  fifteen  years  greater  than 
that  which  l)e  attained)  I  do  not  see  or  think  that  any 
conduct  of  mine  would  have  made  matters  better  for  him. 

My  father's  death  naturally  made  an  impoi-tant  change 
in  my  mother's  plans  for  the  future.  The  C'liateau  d'llondt 
was  given  up,  adieus  Avere  said,  not  Avithout  many  au  re- 
voirs,  to  many  kind  friends  at  Bruges,  and  more  especially 
at  Ostend,  and  Ave  left  IJelgium  for  England.  After  some 
time  spent  in  house-hunting,  my  mother  hired  a  pleasant 


AT  DADLEY.  207 

house  with  a  good  garden  on  the  common  at  Hadley,  near 
Barnet,  and  there  I  remahied  with  her,  still  awaiting  my 
Birmingham  preferment,  all  that  winter  and  the  following 
spring.  The  earlier  part  of  the  time  was  saddened  by  the 
rapid  decline  and  death  of  ray  younger  sister,  Emily.  We 
knew  before  leavinor  Bruges  that  there  was  but  a  slender 
hope  of  saving  her  from  the  same  malady  which  had  been 
fatal  to  my  brother  Henry.  But  the  medical  men  hoped, 
or  professed  to  hope,  that  much  might  be  expected  from 
her  return  to  her  native  air.  But  the  mark  of  the  cruel 
disease  was  upon  her,  and  very  rapidly  after  our  estab- 
lishment at  Hadley  she  sank  and  painlessly  breathed  her 
last. 

Poor  little  Emily  !  She  was  a  very  bright  espihgle 
child,  full  of  fun  and  high  spirits.  There  is  a  picture  of 
her  exactly  as  I  remember  her.  She  is  represented  with 
flowing  flaxen  curls  and  wide  china-bhie  eyes,  sitting,  with 
a  brown  holland  ])inafore  on,  before  a  writing-desk  and 
blowing  a  prisraatically-colored  soap-bubble.  The  writing 
copy  on  the  desk  lying  above  the  half-covered  and  neg- 
lected page  of  copy-book  bears  the  legend  "  Study  Avith 
determined  zeal." 

Her  youngest  child  had  ever  been  to  my  mother  as  the 
apple  of  her  eye,  and  her  loss  was  for  the  passing  day  a 
crushing  l)lo\v.  But,  as  usual  with  her,  her  mind  refused 
to  remain  crushed,  any  more  than  the  grass  is  perma- 
nently crushed  by  the  storm  wind  that  blows  over  it.  She 
had  the  innate  faculty  and  tcn<lency  to  throw  sorrow  off 
when  the  cause  of  it  had  passi'd.  She  owed  herself  to  the 
living,  and  refused  to  allow  unavailing  regret  for  those 
Avho  had  been  taken  from  her  to  incapacitate  lur  for  pay- 
ing that  debt  to  the  utmost. 

And  once  again,  as  was  usual  with  her,  her  new  home 
became  a  centre  of  social  enjoyment  and  attraetion  for 
all,  esi)ecially  the  young,  who  were  admitted  to  it.  I  do 
not  remember  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  family  of 
the  rector,  Mr.  Thackeray,  we  had  many  ae(|uaint:inces  at 
Ha<lley.  I  remember  a  bit  of  fun,  long  current  among  us, 
which  was  furnished  by  the  recejition  my  mothi'r  met  with 
when  returning  the  call  of  the  wife  of  a  wealthy  distiller 


208  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

resident  in  the  neighborhood.  The  lady  was  of  abnormal 
bulk,  and  when  my  mother  entered  the  room  in  which  she 
was  sitting,  she  said,  "Excuse  me,  ma'am,  if  I  keep  my 
chair,  I  never  nrise.  But  I  am  glad  to  see  you — glad  to 
see  anybody,"  with  much  emphasis  on  the  last  word.  I 
wish  every  caller  was  received  with  as  truthful  an  expres- 
sion of  sentiments. 

Our  society  consisted  mainly  of  friends  staying  in  the 
house,  or  of  flying  visitors  from  London.  As  nsual,  too, 
my  mother  soon  gathered  around  her  a  knot  of  nice  girls, 
who  made  the  house  bright.  For  herself  she  seemed  al- 
ways ready  to  take  part  in  all  the  fun  and  amusement 
that  was  going;  and  was  the  first  to  plan  dances,  and 
charades,  and  picnics,  and  theatricals  on  a  small  and  un- 
pretending scale.  I5ut  five  o'clock  of  every  morning  saw 
her  at  her  desk ;  and  the  production  of  the  series  of  nov- 
els, which  was  not  brought  to  a  conclusion  till  it  had 
reached  the  hundred  and  fifteenth  volume,  though  it  was 
not  begun  till  she  Avas  past  fifty,  never  ceased. 

The  Christmas  was,  I  remember,  a  very  merry  one.  We 
were  seeing  a  good  deal  of  a  young  fellow-clerk  of  my 
brother's  in  the  secretary's  office  at  the  post-oflice,  who 
was  then  beginning  to  fall  in  love  with  my  sister  Cecilia, 
whom  he  married  not  long  afterwards.  He  was  then  at 
the  beginning  of  a  long  official  life,  from  which  he  retired 
some  years  ago  as  Sir  John  Tilley,  K.C.B.  Among  others 
of  our  little  circle,  I  especially  remember  Joseph  Henry 
Green,  the  celebrated  surgeon,  Coleridge's  literary  execu- 
tor, Avho  first  became  known  to  us  through  his  brother-in- 
law,  ]\f  r.  Hammond,  who  was  in  practice  at  Hadley.  Green 
Avas  an  immensely  tall  man,  with  a  face  of  no  beauty,  but 
as  brightly  alive  Avith  humor  as  any  I  ever  saAV.  He  Avas 
a  delightful  companion  in  a  Avalk  ;  and  I  remember  to  the 
present  hour  much  of  the  curious  and  out-of-thc-Avay  in- 
formation I  jncked  up  from  him,  mainly  on  subjects  more 
or  less  connected  Avith  his  profession — for  he,  as  well  as  I, 
utterly  scouted  the  stupid  sink-the-shop  rule  of  conversa- 
tion. I  remember  especially  his  saying  of  Coleridge,  apro- 
pos of  a  passage  in  his  biography  Avhich  speaks  of  the 
singular  habit  (noticed  by  his  amanuensis)  that  he  had  of 


AT   IIADLEY.  209 

occupying  his  mind  with  the  coming  passage,  which  he 
was  about  to  dictate,  while  uttering  that  witli  which  the 
Avriter  was  busy,  tliat  he  (Green)  iiad  frequently  observed 
the  same  peculiarity  in  his  conversation. 

Some  few  of  our  guests  came  to  us  from  beyond  the 
Channel,  among  them  charming  Mrs.  Fauche,  with  her 
lovely  voice  and  equally  lovely  face,  whose  Ostend  hospi- 
talities my  mother  was  glad  to  have  an  opportunity  of 
returninix. 

Among  these  visitors  from  the  other  side  of  the  Chan- 
nel, I  remember  one  elderly  lady  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
faith,  and  a  strict  observer  of  its  precepts,  who  was  pleased 
to  express  a  very  strong  approbation  of  a  certain  oyster 
soup  which  made  its  appearance  one  day  at  my  mother's 
table.  She  was  charmed  at  the  idea  of  being  able  to  eat 
such  soup  for  a  tyiaigre  dimicv,  and  begged  that  the  receipt 
might  be  written  out  for  her.  "  Oyster  soup  !  Just  the 
thing  for  a  Friday  !"  So  the  mode  of  preparing  the  de- 
sired dainty  was  duly  Avritten  out  for  her.  But  her  face 
was  a  study  for  a  physiognomist  when  she  read  the  first 
line  of  it,  to  the  effect  that  she  was  to  "Take  of  ^jj7;?i<3 
beef^'  so  much.     Oyster  soup,  indeed  ! 

It  was  a  pleasant  time — so  pleasant  that  I  am  afraid 
that  I  did  not  regret,  })erhai)S  so  much  as  I  ought  to  have 
done,  the  continued  delay  of  the  Birmingham  appointment 
for  which  I  was  all  this  time  waiting.  But  pleasant  as  it 
was,  its  pleasantness  was  not  sufiicient  wholly  to  restrain 
me  from  indulging  in  that  propensity  for  rambling  which 
has  been  with  me  the  ruling  ])assion  of  a  long  lifetime. 

It  was  in  the  spring  following  that  merry  Christmas 
that  I  found  time  for  a  little  tour  of  about  three  weeks  in 
Normandy.  The  reader  need  not  fear  that  I  am  going  to 
tell  him  anything  of  all  I  did  ami  all  I  saw,  though  every 
detail  of  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  wcjrthy  uf  minute 
record.  But  it  has  all  been  written  and  printed  some 
scores  of  times  since  those  days — by  myself  once  among 
the  rest — an<l  may  now  be  dismissed  with  a  "  See  guide- 
books prifishn."  The  exjicnses  of  my  travel,  accuratt^ly 
recorded,  I  have  also  l)efore  me.  There,  indeed,  I  might 
furnish  some  facts  which  would  be  new  and  surprising  to 


210  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

tourists  of  the  present  day,  but  they  woukl  only  serve  to 
make  liini  discontented  witli  his  generation, 

Tliere  is  one  anecdote,  liowever,  connected  Avith  this 
little  journey  whicli  I  must  relate.  I  was  returning  from 
soutliern  Normandy  and  reached  Caen  without  a  penny  in 
my  pocket.  My  funds,  carefully  husbanded  as  they  had 
been,  had  sufficed  to  carry  me  so  far  and  no  farther. 
There  were  no  such  things  as  telegrams  or  railways  in 
those  days ;  and  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  to  a  hotel 
and  there  remain  till  my  application  to  Hadley  for  funds 
could  be  answered — an  affair  of  some  ten  or  twelve  days 
as  things  then  were.  While  I  was  waitins:  and  kicking 
my  heels  about  the  old  Norman  city,  from  which  I  had 
already  extracted  all  the  interest  it  could  afford  me,  I 
lounged  into  the  shop  of  a  bookseller,  M.  Mancel.  I  re- 
visited him  on  a  subsequent  occasion,  and  find  the  record 
of  this  second  visit  in  the  first  of  two  volumes  which  I 
wrote,  and  entitled  A  Summer  in  Brittany.  There  I  find 
that  M.  Mancel  is  "the  publisher  of  numerous  works  on 
the  history  and  antiquities  of  Normandy.  .  .  .  M.  Mancel 
has  also  an  extensive  collection  of  old  books  on  Norman 
history;  but  the  rarest  and  most  curious  articles  are  con- 
gregated into  a  most  bibliomaniacal-looking  cabinet,  and 
are  not  for  sale." 

"Well,  this  was  the  gentleman  into  whose  very  tempting 
shop  I  strayed  with  empty  pockets.  He  was  extremely 
civil,  showed  me  many  interesting  things,  and,  finding 
that  I  was  not  altogether  an  ignoramus  as  regarded  his 
specialty,  observed  ever  and  anon,  "  That  is  a  book  which 
you  ought  to  have  !"  "That  is  a  work  Avhich  you  will 
find  very  useful  !"  till  at  last  I  said,  "Very  true  !  There 
are  two  or  three  books  here  that  I  should  like  to  have  ; 
but  I  have  no  money  !"  He  instantly  begged  me  to  take 
any  book  or  books  I  should  like  to  buy,  and  pay  for  them 
wlien  I  got  to  London.  "  But,"  rejoined  I,  "  I  don't  know 
when  I  shall  get  to  London,  for  I  have  no  money  at  all. 
I  reached  Caen  with  my  purse  empty,  and  am  stranded 
here  !"  M.  Mancel  thereupon  eagerly  begged  me  to  let 
him  be  my  banker  for  my  immediate  needs,  as  well  as  for 
the  price  of  any  volumes  I  chose  to  purchase.    And  though 


AT   HADLEY.  211 

he  had  never  seen  my  face  or  heard  my  name  before,  he 
absolutely  did  furnish  me  with  money  to  reach  home,  and 
^ave  me  credit  for  some  two  or  throe  pounds'  worth  of 
books,  it  beiniT  arranged  that  I  should,  on  reaching  Lon- 
don, pay  the  amount  to  M.  Dulau  in  Soho  Square. 

A  few  years  ago,  on  passing  through  Caen,  I  went  to  the 
old  book  shop  ;  but  M.  Mancel  had  long  since  gone  to  join 
the  majority,  and  his  place  knew  him  no  more.  His  succes- 
sor, however,  on  my  explaining  to  him  the  motive  of  my 
visit,  remarked,  with  a  truly  French  bow,  "  ]My  predeces- 
sor seems  to  have  been  a  good  physiognomist,  monsieur !" 

I  returned  to  Iladley  to  find  my  mother  eagerly  occu- 
pied with  the  scheme  of  a  journey  to  Vienna,  and  a  book 
as  the  result  of  it.  She  had  had,  after  the  publication  of 
her  book  on  "Paris  and  the  Parisians,"  some  idea  of  undei*- 
takine  an  Italian  tour,  but  that  was  now  abandoned  in 
favor  of  a  German  journey,  whether  on  the  suggestion  of 
her  publisher,  or  from  any  other  cause  of  preference,  I  do 
not  know.  Of  course  I  entered  into  such  a  scheme  heart 
and  soul.  My  only  fear  now  Avas  that  news  of  my  ap- 
pointment to  a  mastership  at  Birmingham  might  arrive 
in  time  to  destroy  my  hopes  of  accompanying  my  mother. 
But  no  such  tidings  came ;  on  the  contrary,  there  seemed 
every  reason  to  suppose  that  no  new  master  would  be  ap- 
pointed till  after  the  following  Christmas  holidays.  My 
mother  was  as  anxious  as  I  was  that  I  should  be  free  to 
act  as  her  courier,  for,  in  truth,  she  could  hardly  dispense 
with  some  such  assistance ;  and  I  alone  remained  who 
could  give  it  to  her.  ]\[y  sister  Cecilia  was  to  accompany 
my  mother.  She  wished  also  to  take  with  lier  M.  Ilervieu, 
the  artist  who  illustrated  her  former  books;  and  I  obtained 
her  permission  to  ask  an  Oxford  friend  to  make  one  of  the 
party.  We  were  thus  a  party  of  five,  without  counting 
my  mother's  maid,  an  old  and  trusted  servant,  the  taking 
of  whum,  however,  she  subsecpiently  considered  so  great 
a  mistake  tliat  slie  never  fell  into  it  on  any  other  occasion. 

My  delight  at  the  prospect  of  such  a  jounu  y  was  in- 
tense. I  surrounded  myself  fortliwith  Mitli  an  amazing 
supply  of  maps  :ind  guide-books,  and  was  busy  from  morn- 
ing to  night  with  the  thoroughly  congenial  task  of  study- 
ing and  preparing  our  proposed  route. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

GERMAN   TOUR. — IN   AUSTRIA. 

That  I  started  on  this  occasion  even  more  than  on  any 
other  with  the  greatest  delight  "  goes  without  saying."  A 
longer  and  more  varied  journey  than  I  had  ever  before 
enjoyed  Avas  before  me.  All  was  new,  even  more  entirely 
new  to  the  imagination  than  Paris  ;  and  my  interest,  curi- 
osity, and  eagerness  were  great  in  proportion.  We  trav- 
elled by  way  of  Metz,  Strasbourg,  and  Stuttgardt,  and, 
after  reaching  the  German  frontier,  by  LoJinkutscJier,  or 
vetturino — incredibly  slow,  but  of  all  modes  of  travelling 
save  the  haquenee  des  Cordeliers  the  best  for  giving  the 
traveller  some  acquaintance  with  the  country  traversed 
and  its  inhabitants, 

A  part  of  the  journey  was  performed  in  a  j'ct  slower 
fashion,  and  one  which  was  still  richer  in  its  opportunities 
for  seeing  both  men  and  things.  For  we  descended  the 
Danube  on  one  of  those  barges  which  ply  on  the  river, 
used  mainly  for  cargo,  but  also  occasionally  for  passen- 
gers. When  I  look  back  upon  that  part  of  our  expedition 
I  feel  some  astonishment  at  not  only  tlie  hardihood  of  my 
mother  and  sister  in  consenting  to  such  an  enterprise,  but 
more  still  at  my  own — it  really  seems  to  my  present  no- 
tions— almost  reckless  audacity  in  counselling  and  under- 
taking to  protect  them  in  such  a  scheme. 

Whether  any  such  boats  still  continue  to  navigate  the 
Danube  I  do  not  know.  I  should  think  that  quicker  and 
better  modes  of  transporting  both  liuman  beings  and  goods 
liave  long  since  driven  them  from  their  many  time  secular 
occupation.  In  any  case  it  is  liardly  likely  that  any  Eng- 
lish travellers  will  ever  again  have  such  an  experience. 
The  Lohnkidscher,  with  his  thirty  or  forty  miles  a  day 
and  his  easy-going,  lotus-eating-like  habitudes,  is  hardly 
like  to  tempt  the  traveller  who  is  wont  to  grumble  at  the 


IN  AUSTRIA.  213 

tediousness  of  an  express-train.  But  a  voyage  on  a  Dan- 
ube carrier-barge  would  be  relegated  to  the  category  of 
those  things  -which  might  be  done,  "could  a  man  be  se- 
cure that  his  life  should  endure  As  of  old,  for  a  thousand 
long  years,"  but  which  are  quite  out  of  the  question  in  any 
other  circumstances. 

Here  is  the  account  which  my  mother  gives  of  the  boat 
on  which  we  were  about  to  embark  at  Ratisbon  for  the 
voyage  down  the  river  to  Vienna. 

"  We  start  to-morrow,  and  I  can  hardly  tell  you  whether 
I  dread  it  or  wish  for  it  most.  We  have  been  down  to 
the  river's  bank  to  see  the  boat,  and  it  certainly  does  not 
look  very  promising  of  comfort.  But  there  is  nothing 
better  to  be  had.  It  is  a  large  structure  of  unpainted  deal 
boards,  almost  the  whole  of  Avhich  is  occupied  by  a  sort 
of  arklike  cabin  erected  in  the  middle.  This  is  very  near- 
ly filled  by  boxes,  casks,  and  bales  ;  the  small  portion  not 
so  occupied  being  provided  with  planks  for  benches  and 
a  species  of  rough  dresser  placed  between  them  for  a  table. 
This  we  are  given  to  understand  is  fitted  up  for  the  express 
accommodation  of  the  cabin  passengers." 

In  point  of  fact,  we  had,  as  I  remember,  no  fellow-pas- 
sengers in  any  part  of  our  voyage.  I  take  it  that  nobody, 
save  perhaps  the  peasants  of  the  villages  on  the  banks  of 
the  stream,  for  short  passages  from  one  of  them  to  the 
other,  ever  tliought  of  travelling  by  these  barges  even  in 
those  days.  They  were,  in  fact,  merely  trans])orts  for 
merchandise  of  the  heavier  and  rougher  sort.  The  ex- 
treme rudeness  of  their  construction,  merely  rough  planks 
roughly  nailed  together,  is  ex))lained  by  the  fact  that  the}-- 
arc  not  intended  ever  to  make  the  return  voyage  against 
the  stream,  but,  on  arriving  at  Vienna,  are  knocked  to 
pieces  and  sold  for  boarding. 

"But  the  worst  thing  I  saw,"  continues  my  mother,  "is 
tlic  ladder  wliieh,  in  case  of  rain,  is  to  take  us  down  to 
this  place  of  little  case.  It  consists  of  a  plank  with  slicks 
nailed  across  it  to  sustain  the  toes  of  the  crawler  wlio 
would  wish  to  avoi<l  jumping  down  seven  or  eight  feet. 
Tlie  sloping  roof  of  the  ark  is  furnislu(l  with  one  bcncli 
of  al)OUt  six  feet  long,  fi<>ni  which  tlie  legs  of  the  bravo 


214  WHAT   I   KEMEMBEli. 

souls  who  .sit  on  it  daiiMe  down  over  the  river.  There  is 
not  tlie  slijjlitest  protection  whatever  at  the  edge  of  this 
abrubtly  sloi)ing  roof,  which  forms  the  only  deck ;  and 
nothing  but  the  rough,  unslijipery  surface  of  the  deal 
jtlanks,  of  which  it  is  formed,  with  the  occasional  aid  of  a 
bit  of  slick  about  three  inches  long  nailed  here  and  there, 
can  prevent  those  who  stand  or  walk  upon  it  from  gently 
sliding  down  into  the  stream.  .  .  .  Well !  we  have  deter- 
mined, one  and  all  of  us,  to  navigate  the  Danube  between 
Ratisbon  and  Vienna ;  and  I  will  neither  disappoint  ray- 
self  nor  my  party  from  the  fear  of  a  fit  of  vertigo  or  a 
scramble  down  a  ladder." 

But  if  the  courage  of  the  ladies  did  not  fail  them,  mine, 
as  that  of  the  person  most  responsible  for  the  adventure, 
did.  And  I  find  that,  on  the  day  following  that  on  which 
the  last  extract  Avas  written,  my  mother  writes : 

"At  a  very  early  hour  this  morning  T.  [Tom]  was  up 
and  on  board,  and  perceiving — by  a  final  examination  of 
the  deck,  its  one  giddy  little  bench,  and  all  things  a])per- 
talning  thereto — that  we  should  inevitably  be  extremely 
uncomfortable  there,  he  set  about  considering  the  Avays 
and  means  by  which  such  martyrdom  might  be  avoided. 
He  at  last  got  hold  of  the  Schiffmeister,  which  he  had 
found  impossible  yesterday,  and  by  a  little  persuasion  and 
a  little  bril)ery  induced  him  to  have  a  plank  fixed  for  us 
at  the  extreme  bow  of  the  boat,  which  we  can  not  only 
reach  without  difficulty,  but  have  a  space  of  some  nine  or 
ten  feet  square  for  our  sole  use,  on  condition  of  leaving  it 
free  for  the  captain  about  five  minutes  before  each  land- 
ing. This  perch  is  i)erfectly  delightful  in  all  respects. 
Our  fruit,  cold  meat,  wine,  bread,  and  so  forth  arc  stowed 
near  us.  Desks  and  drawing  -  books  can  all  find  place; 
and,  in  short,  if  the  sun  will  but  continue  to  shine  as  it 
does  now,  all  will  be  Avell.  .  .  .  Our  ci'cw  are  a  very  mot- 
ley set,  and  as  Ave  look  at  them  from  our  dignified  retire- 
ment they  seem  likely  to  afford  us  a  variety  of  picturesque 
groups.  On  the  platforms,  Avhicli  project  at  each  end  of 
the  ark,  stand  the  men — and  the  Avomen  too — Avho  Avork 
the  vessel.  This  is  performed  ])y  means  of  four  immense 
oars  profnuling  IcngtliAvise  \i.  t'.,  in  a  fore-and-afl   dircc- 


IN   AUSTRIA.  215 

tion],  two  in  front  and  two  towards  the  stern,  by  Avliich 
the  iKiat  is  steered.  Besides  these,  there  are  two  others 
to  row  with.  These  latter  are  always  in  aetion,  and  are 
each  worked  by  six  or  eight  men  and  women,  the  others 
being  only  used  occasionally,  Avhen  the  boat  requires  steer- 
ing. It  ajjpears  that  there  are  many  passengers  who  work 
for  their  passage  [but  this  I  take  to  have  been  inference 
only],  as  the  seats  at  the  oars  are  frequently  changed,  and 
as  soon  as  their  allotted  task  is  done  they  dip  down  into 
the  unknown  reuion  beyond  the  ark  and  are  no  more  seen 
till  their  turn  for  rowing  comes  round  again.  I  presume 
the  labor,  thus  divided,  is  not  very  severe,  for  they  appear 
to  Avork  with  much  gayety  and  good-humor,  sometimes 
singing,  sometimes  chatting,  and  often  bursting  into  shouts 
of  light-hearted  laughter." 

It  was  a  strange  voyage:  curious,  novel,  and  riill  of 
never-failing  interest ;  luxurious  even  in  its  way,  in  many 
respects;  which  may  now  be  considered  an  old-world  ex- 
perience ;  which  })robably  has  never  been  tried  since,  and 
certainly  will  never  be  tried  again,  however  many  wander- 
ing young  Englishmen  (of  whom  there  are  a  hundred  now 
for  every  one  to  be  met  Avith  in  those  days)  might  fancy 
trvin<'-  it.  No  danrrer  whatever  of  the  kind  which  my 
mother  appears  to  have  anticii)ated  threatened  any  of  the 
j.arty;  but  the  adventure  was  not  without  danger  of  an- 
other kind,  as  the  secjuel  showed. 

Of  course,  all  the  people  Avith  whom  we  were  brought 
into  contact — tiie  captain  and  crew  of  the  boat,  the  river- 
side loungers  at  the  landing-places,  the  hosts  and  house- 
hohls  of  the  little  inns  in  the  small  places  at  which  the 
boat  stopped  every  night  (it  never  travelled  save  by  day- 
liglit) — were  all  mystified,  and  had  all  their  ideas  of  the 
])ro]>rictics  and  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  outraged  by 
the  ])henonu'non  (jf  a  party  of  English  ladies  and  gentle- 
j^^PP — supposed  by  virtue  of  ancient  aiid  well-recognized 
rejtutation  to  l.e  all  as  rich  as  Cnesus,  and  who  wi  re  at 
all  events  manifestly  able  to  )>ay  for  a  carriage — choosing 
such  a  method  of  travelling.  Korliad  English  wanderers 
at  that  time  earned  the  privilege  sinci-  accorded  to  their 
nunierousuess,  of  doing  all  sorts  of  strange  things  unqiies- 


216  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

tioned  on  the  score  of  the  well-known  prevalent  insanity 
of  the  race.  All  who  came  within  sight  of  us  Avere  ut- 
terly puzzled  at  the  unaccouutableness  of  the  phenome- 
non. And  one  does  not  mystify  tlie  Avhole  of  a  somewhat 
rude  population  Avithout  risking  disagreeables  of  various 
sorts. 

On  looking  back  on  the  circumstances  from  my  present 
lofty  and  calm  observatory  I  am  disposed  to  Avonder  that 
nothiiiGr  Avorse  betided  us  than  the  one  adventure  of  Avhich 
I  am  a))Out  to  speak.  But,  as  I  remember,  the  people 
generally  Avere,  if  somcAvhat  ruder  and  rougher  than  an 
English  population  of  similar  status,  upon  the  Avhole  very 
kindly  and  good-natured. 

But  at  one  place — a  village  called  Pleintling — we  did 
get  into  trouble,  Avhich  very  nearl}-^  ended  tragically.  The 
terms  upon  Avhich  Ave  Avere  to  be  housed  for  the  night  and 
the  price  to  be  paid  for  our  accommodation  of  all  sorts 
bad  been  settled  overnight,  and  the  consciousness  that  Ave 
Avere  giving  unusual  trouble  induced  us  to  pay  without 
grumbling  such  a  price  for  our  beds  and  supper  and  break- 
fast as  the  host  had  assuredly  never  received  for  his  food 
and  lodging  in  all  his  previous  experience.  But  it  Avas 
doubtless  this  A'ery  absence  of  bargaining  which  led  our 
landlord  to  imagine  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  in  not 
demanding  far  more,  and  that  any  amount  might  be  had 
for  asking  it  from  so  mysterious  a  party,  Avho  parted,  too, 
so  easily  Avith  their  money.  So,  as  we  Avere  stepping  on 
board  the  next  morning,  he  came  doAvn  to  the  Avater's 
edge,  and  with  loud  vociferation  demanded  a  sum  more 
than  the  double  of  that  Avhich  avc  had  already  paid  him. 
The  ladies,  and,  indeed,  all  the  party  save  m^'self,  Avho 
was  the  j^aymaster,  had  already  gone  on  board,  and  I  Avas 
about  to  follow,  unheeding  his  demands  and  his  threats, 
Avhen  he  seized  rae  bj"^  the  throat,  and,  dragging  me  back- 
Avard,  declared  in  stentorian  tones  that  he  liad  not  been 
])aid.  I  sturdily  refused  to  disburse  another  kreutzer. 
The  other  men,  Avho  had  gone  on  board,  jumped  back  to 
my  assistance.  But  suddenly,  as  if  they  had  risen  from 
the  earth,  several  other  felloAVS  surrounded  us  and  dragged 
doAvn  my  friends.     The  old  landlord,  beside  himself  Avith 


IN  AUSTRIA.  217 

rasre,  lifted  an  axe  which  he  had  in  his  hand  and  was 
about  to  deal  me  a  blow  which  would  probably  have  re- 
lieved the  readinflj  world  of  this  and  many  another  page. 
But  my  mother,  shrieking  with  alarm,  had  meantime  be- 
sought the  captain  of  the  boat  to  settle  the  matter  by  pay- 
ing whatever  was  demanded.  He  also  jumped  on  shore 
just  in  time,  and  released  us  from  our  foes,  and  himself 
from  further  delay,  by  doing  so. 

At  the  next  place  at  which  we  could  go  on  shore  we 
made  a  complaint  to  the  police  officials ;  and  it  is  not 
without  satisfaction,  even  after  the  lapse  of  half  a  cent- 
ury, that  I  am  able  to  say  that  a  communication  from  the 
])()lice  in  an  Austrian  town  some  days  subsequently,  and 
after  we  had  crossed  the  Bavarian  frontier,  informed  us 
that  the  old  scoundrel  at  Pleintling  had  not  only  been 
made  to  disgorge  the  sum  he  had  robbed  us  of,  but  had 
been  trounced  as  he  deserved,  I  suspect  that  he  had  im- 
afi^ined,  from  the  strangeness  of  our  party  and  our  mode  of 
travelling,  that  there  were  reasons  why  we  should  not  be 
inclined  to  seek  any  interview  with  the  officers  of  the  po- 
lice. 

"With  that  sole  exception  our  voyage  from  Ratisbon  to 
Vienna  was  a  prosperous,  and,  on  the  Avhole,  pleasant  one, 
varied  only  by  not  unfroquciith'  recurring  difficulties  oc- 
casioned by  shoals  and  sandbanks,  when  all  hands,  save 
the  non-working  party  in  the  bow,  would  take  to  the  wa- 
ter in  a  truly  amphibious  fashion  to  drag  the  boat  off. 

But  I  must  nut  be  led  by  these  moving  accidents  by 
flood  and  field  to  forgot  a  visit  paid  to  the  sculptor  Dan- 
necker  in  his  studio  at  Stuttgardt.  There  is  in  my  moth- 
er's book  an  etching  by  M.  Hervieu  of  the  man  and  i)lace. 
I  remember  well  the  affectionate  reverence  with  which  he 
uncovered  for  us  his  colossal  bust  of  Schiller,  as  described 
by  my  mother,  and  the  reasons  wliich  he  assigned  (mistak- 
en, as  they  appeared  to  me,  but  it  is  presumjHuous  in  me 
to  say  so)  for  making  it  colossal.  SchilKr  had  been  his 
lifelong  friend,  and  these  reasons,  whether  artistically 
(rood  or  not,  were,  at  all  events,  morally  admirable  and  pa- 
thetically touching,  as  given  by  the  old  man  while  look- 
ing up  at  his  work  with  tears  in  his  octogenarian  eyes.  I 
10 


218  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

do  not  think  the  reproduction  of  the  bust  in  M.  Hervieu's 
etching  is  a  very  happy  one,  but  I  can  testify  to  the  full- 
length  portrait  of  the  aged  sculptor  being  a  thoroughly 
lifelike  one.  It  is  the  old  man  himself.  He  died  a  year 
or  two  after  the  date  of  our  visit. 

Uhland,  too,  we  visited,  and  Gustav  Schwab.  Of  the 
former  I  may  say  literally  vidl  tantuni,  for  I  could  speak 
then  no  German,  and  very  few  words  now,  and  Uhland 
could  speak  no  other  language.  And  our  interview  is 
worth  recording  mainly  for  the  case  of  the  noticeable  fact 
that  such  a  man,  holding  the  j)osition  he  did  and  does  in 
the  literature  of  his  country,  should  at  that  day  have  been 
unable  to  converse  in  French. 

Gustav  Schwab,  though  talking  French  fluently,  and,  as 
I  remember,  a  little  English  also,  impressed  me  as  quint- 
cssentially  German  in  manner,  in  appearance,  and  ways  of 
thinking.  He  was  one  of  the  kindliest  of  men,  contented 
with  you  only  on  condition  of  being  permitted  to  be  of 
service  to  you,  and  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour  making  you 
somehow  or  other  feel  as  if  he  must  have  been  an  old 
friend,  if  not  in  your  present,  at  least  in  some  former  state 
of  existence. 

My  journey  among  these  southern  Germans  left  me  with 
the  impression  that  they  are  generally  a  kindly  and  good- 
natured  people.  A  little  incident  occurred  at  Tubingen 
Avhich  I  thought  notably  illustrated  this.  The  university 
library  there  is  a  very  fine  one  ;  and,  while  the  rest  of  our 
party  were  busied  with  some  other  sight-seeing,  I  went 
thither,  and  applied  to  the  librarian  for  some  information 
respecting  the  departments  in  which  it  was  strong,  its  rules, 
etc.  lie  immediately  set  about  comi)lying  with  my  wishes 
in  the  most  obliging  manner,  going  through  the  magnifi- 
cent suite  of  rooms  with  me  himself,  and  pausing  before 
the  shelves  wherever  he  had  any  special  treasure  to  show. 
All  of  a  sudden,  without  any  warning,  just  as  we  were 
passing  through  the  marble  jambs  of  a  doorway  from  one 
room  to  another,  my  head  began  to  swim  ;  I  lost  conscious- 
ness, and  fell,  cutting  my  head  against  the  marble  suffi- 
ciently to  cause  much  bloodshed.  When  I  recovered  my 
senses  I  found  the  librarian  standing  in  consternation  over 


IX  AUSTRIA.  219 

mc,  and  his  pretty  young  wife  on  ber  knoes,  with  a  basin 
of  water,  bathing  ni}-  head.  Slie  had  been  summoned 
from  her  dwelling  to  attend  me,  and  there  was  no  end  to 
their  kindness,  I  never  experienced  such  a  queer  attack 
before  or  since.  I  suppose  it  must  have  been  occasioned 
by  too  much  erudition  on  an  empty  stomach. 

Our  route  to  Vienna  was  a  very  devious  one,  including 
southern  Bavaria,  Salzburg,  and  great  part  of  the  Tyrol. 
But  I  must  not  indulsre  in  anv  iournalizinsr  reminiscences 
of  it.  Were  I  to  do  so  in  the  case  of  all  the  interesting 
journeys  I  have  made  since  that  day,  how  many  volumes 
would  suffice  for  the  purpose?  When  calling,  the  other 
day,  only  two  or  three  months  ago,  on  Cardinal  Massaia, 
at  the  Propaganda  in  Rome,  in  order  to  have  some  con- 
versation with  him  respecting  his  thirty-five  years'  mis- 
sionary work  in  Africa,  on  returning  from  which  he  re- 
ceived the  purple  from  Leo  XIII.,  he  obligingly  showed 
me  the  318.  which  he  had  prepared  from  his  recollection 
of  the  contents  of  the  original  notes,  unfortunately  de- 
stroyed during  his  imprisonment  by  hostile  tribes  in  Af- 
rica, and  which  is  now  being  printed  at  ^the  Propaganda 
Press  in  ten  volumes  quarto.  Ilis  eminence  was  desirous 
that  it  sliould  be  translated  into  English,  and  published  in 
Lomlon,  with  the  interesting  illustrations  he  brought  home 
with  him,  and  which  adorn  the  Roman  edition.  But  as 
the  wish  of  his  eminence  was  that  it  should  l)e  published 
unabridged  (!)  I  was  obliged  to  tell  liini  that  I  feared  lie 
wouhl  not  find  a  London  publisher.  We  parted  very  good 
friends,  and  on  taking  my  leave  of  him  he  said,  pressing 
my  hand  kindly,  that  we  should  shortly  meet  again  in 
heaven  ;  which,  considering  that  he  knew  he  was  talking 
to  a  heretic,  I  fdt  to  be  a  manifestation  of  liberal  feeling 
worthy  of  note  in  a  cardinal  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Will  the  kind  reader,  bearing  in  mind  the  ri'cognjzed 
and  .-ilniost  ])rivileged  garrulity  of  old  age,  jtai-don  the 
ehronology-def \  ing  introdiu-tion  of  this  anecdote  here, 
which  was  suggested  to  me  solely  by  tlie  vision  of  what 
itii/  reniiniscences  would  extend  to  if  I  were  to  treat  of  all 
my  wanderings  up  and  down  this  globe  in  (xtcn.to. 

The  latter  part  of  our  voyage  was  especially  interesting 


220  WHAT   I  KEMEMBER. 

aiicl  boaxitiful,  but  tantalizing  from  the  impossibility  of 
landing  on  every  lovely  spot  Avhieh  enticed  us.  IVfever- 
theless,  we  at  last  found  ourselves  at  Vienna  with  much 
delight,  and  our  first  glimpses  of  the  city  disposed  us  to 
acquiesce  heartily  in  the  burden  of  the  favorite  Viennese 
folk-song,  "  Es   ist  nur  ein  Junsei'stadt,  es   ist  nur  ein 

I  remember  well  an  incident  which  my  mother  does  not 
mention,  but  which  seemed  likely  to  make  our  first  debut 
in  the  Kaiserstadt  an  embarrassing  one.  There  was,  in 
some  hand-bag  belonging  to  some  one  of  the  party,  an  old, 
forgotten  pack  of  playing-cards,  which  the  examining  offi- 
cer of  the  customs  pounced  on  with  an  expression  of  almost 
consternation  on  his  face. 

"  Oh,  well,  throw  them  away,"  said  the  spokesman  of 
our  party,  airily,  "  or,  if  the  regulations  require  it,  we  will 
pay  the  duty,  though  we  have  not  the  least  desire  to  retain 
possession  of  them." 

But  this  we  soon  found  did  not  meet  the  case  by  any 
means.  We  had  been  guilty  of  a  serious  misdemeanor 
and  offence  against  the  law  by  having  such  things  (unde- 
clared, too)  among  our  baggage  !  There  must  be  a  report 
and  a  written  petition,  setting  forth,  with  due  contrition 
and  humble  peecavi  admissions,  our  lamentable  ignorance, 
and  j^erhaps  the  enormity  might  be  condoned  to  a  foreigner ! 
After  a  little  talk,  however,  and  the  incense  of  a  little  con- 
sternation on  our  faces,  duly  offered  to  the  official  Jove 
(who  entirely  spurned  any  offering  of  another  soi't),  the 
said  Jove  wrote  the  petition  for  us  himself,  carried  it  some- 
where behind  the  scenes,  and  shortly  announced  that  it  was 
benignly  granted  ;  as  I  believe,  by  himself  !  The  accursed 
thing  was  ceremoniously  destroyed  before  our  eyes,  and 
we  were  free  to  walk  forth  into  the  streets  of  the  Kaiser- 
stadt. 

I  revisited  Vienna  two  or  three  years  ago,  and  found 
that  "ein  Wien^^  had  become  at  least  three!  If  the  in- 
crease and  changes  of  London  and  Paris  have  made  my 
early  recollections  of  those  cities  emphatically  those  of  a 
former  age,  the  changes  at  Vienna,  though,  of  course, 
smaller  in  absolute  extent,  have  yet  more  entirely  meta- 


IX    AUSTRIA.  221 

morpliosed  the  character  of  the  place.  The  abolition  of 
the  wall,  which  used  to  shut  in  the  exclusive  little  city, 
and  placed  between  it  and  the  suburbs  not  only  a  material 
barrier,  but  a  gulf  such  as  that  which  divided  Dives  from 
Lazarus,  has  changed  the  social  habitudes  and  even  the 
moral  characteristics  of  the  inhabitants. 

In  the  days  of  my  first  visit,  now  just  a  little  more  than 
fifty  years  ago,  nobody  who  was  anybody  would  have 
dreamed  of  living  on  the  outside  of  the  sacred  barrier  of 
the  wall  any  more  than  a  member  of  the  fashionable  world 
of  London  wouhl  dream  of  living  to  the  eastward  of  Tem- 
ple Bar.  I  think,  indeed,  that  the  former  would  have  been 
more  utterly  out  of  the  question  than  the  latter.  I  remem- 
ber that,  even  in  the  case  of  foreigners  like  ourselves,  it 
was  deemed,  in  accordance  with  the  best  advice  we  could 
procure  on  the  subject,  necessary,  or  at  least  expedient, 
that  we  should  find  lodgings  vi  the  city,  despite  the  ex- 
ceeding difficulty  and  the  high  price  involved  in  procuring 
them.  Tlie  division  of  the  society  into  classes,  still  more 
marked  in  Vienna  than,  probably,  in  any  other  city  of 
Europe,  at  that  time  almost  amounted  to  a  division  into 
castes  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  the  higher  aristocracy,  to  have 
lived  in  any  one  of  the  suburbs  would  assuredly  have  in- 
volved a  loss  of  social  caste. 

]Mainly  this  arose,  of  course,  from  the  inappellable  law 
of  fashion  that  so  it  should  bo.  But  in  part,  also,  it  prob- 
ably arose  from  the  little  social  inconveniences  arising  from 
mere  distance.  The  society  of  Vienna  at  that  dav — soci- 
ciy  pnr  excdlcnre — was  a  very  small  one.  Everybody  knew 
everybody,  not  only  their  pe<ligree  an<l  all  their  cjuarterings 
(very  necessary  to  be  known),  but  the  men  and  women 
themselves  personally.  I  forget  entirely  what  were  the 
introductions  which  jdaccd  my  mother  and  her  party  at 
once  in  the  very  core  of  this  small  and  exclusive  society. 
But  wf  did  find  ourselves  so  placed,  and  that  at  once. 
I'robalily  the  general  notion  in  England  was  then,  and 
may  be  still,  that  the  aristocratic  society  of  Vienna  would 
be  less  likelv  to  open  its  doors  to  one  who  ha<l  no  title 
whatever  to  enter  them  save  a  literary  reputation  than  the 
corresponding  classes  in  any  other  Kiiro|>e;ni  cajdtal.     But, 


222  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Avliatever  was  the  "Open  Sesame"  my  mother  possessed, 
the  fact  was  that  all  doors  were  open  to  her  with  the  most 
open-handed  hospitality.  And,  as  I  have  said,  to  know 
one  was,  even  in  the  case  of  a  stranger,  pretty  nearly 
equivalent  to  knowing  them  all. 

The  by  far  greater  number  of  this  small  society  of  no- 
bles were,  as  was  to  be  expected,  wealthy  men  ;  some,  more 
especially  the  Hungarians,  were  such,  even  if  estimated  by 
English  standards.  But  there  were  some  amontr  them  who 
were  very  much  the  reverse.  And  my  opportunities  of 
observation  were  abundantly  sufficient  to  enable  me  to 
perceive,  without  any  fear  of  being  mistaken,  that  the 
terms  of  intimacy  and  equality  upon  which  these  latter 
lived  with  their  wealthier  neighbors  were  no  whit  affected 
by  their  comparative  impecuniosity.  One  single  lady  of 
very  noble  birth  I  well  remember,  who  to  a  great  pres- 
sure of  the  res  atigxista  domi  added  no  small  spice  of  ec- 
centricity ;  but  there  was  no  mansion  so  magnificent  that 
did  not  open  its  doors  very  widely  to  her.  No  fete  was 
complete  without  her.  She  always  wore  a  turban,  and  al- 
ways carried  it  about  with  her  in  her  pocket.  And  I  have 
seen  her  pause  in  the  midst  of  a  s])lendid  entrance-hall, 
with  half  a  dozen  lackeys  standing  around,  while  she  took 
her  turban  from  her  pocket,  adjusted  it  on  her  head,  and 
changed  her  shoes. 

The  ladies  of  the  grand  monde  in  Vienna  in  those  days 
had  the  queer  habit  of  writing  no  notes.  Their  invitations 
and  the  answers  to  them,  and  the  excuses,  or  any  other 
communications  arising  from  the  social  intercourse  of 
the  day,  were  all  sent  by  word  of  mouth  by  footmen. 
AVhether  the  highest  hon  ton  required  an  affectation  of 
not  being  able  to  write,  I  cannot  say  !  But  such  was  the 
practice. 

Another  specialty  consisted  in  a  practice  of  the  young 
men  of  the  same  world.  Every  man  of  them  retained  in 
his  special  pay  and  service  one  of  the  (very  excellent) 
hackney  coaches  of  the  city,  which  he  always  expected  to 
find  ready  for  his  service,  and  the  driver  of  which  was 
trusted  by  him  as  much,  or  more  perhaps,  than  a  man  is 
in  the  habit  of  trusting  his  own  servant. 


IX   AUSTRIA.  223 

The  social  division  between  the  different  castes — be- 
tween the  noble  and  the  non-noble — was  absolute  in  those 
days  ;  and,  of  course,  both  parties  were  the  losers  in  sun- 
dry respects  by  such  separation.  But  the  results  were 
not  bad  in  all  respects.  One  was  an  exceeding  simplicity 
and  absence  of  any  affectation  of  finery  or  morgue  on  the 
part  of  the  noble  class,  and  a  corresponding  easy-going 
freedom  from  the  small  forms  of  social  ambition  on  the 
part  of  the  non-noble.  There  was  among  the  latter  no 
attempt  or  thought  of  attempting  to  enter  the  noble  so- 
ciety. It  was  out  of  the  question  ;  and,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  such  entry  did  not  appear  to  be  an  object  of  ambition, 
or  the  impossibility  of  it  to  occasion  either  heart-burning 
or  jealousy.  In  the  case  of  the  ladies  of  the  deux  mondes, 
the  sepai-ation  was  absolute  and  without  exception.  But 
I  was  told  that  in  some  few  cases  the  young  men  of  the 
upper  class  might  be  seen  in  the  houses  of  certain  of  their 
non-noble  fellow-citizens,  but  never  with  any  reciprocity 
of  toleration.  In  respect  of  mere  wealth  and  luxury  in 
the  manner  of  living,  there  were  many  bourgeois  families 
on  a  par,  and  in  many  cases  on*  far  more  than  a  par,  with 
those  of  the  nobles.  And  no  doubt  it  frequently  oc- 
curred that  the  social  law  which  forbade  all  intercourse 
between  the  two  septs  was  felt  to  be  as  inconvenient 
and  as  much  a  matter  of  regret  on  one  side  of  the  barrier 
as  on  the  other.  But,  noblesse  oblige,  and  the  law  was  not 
transgressed. 

In  (he  case  of  foreigners,  however,  or  at  least  of  English 
foreigners,  we  were  very  soon  given  to  understand  that 
the  law  in  <)iicstion  was  not  apjilicablc.  "We  were  perfect- 
ly free  to  make  acquaintances  in  lither  worhl,  and  sunie 
of  the  most  valued  frii-nds  we  made  in  Vienna,  and  some 
of  tlie  j)leasantest  liospitalities  we  accei)ted,  were  found  in 
bourgeois  liouses.  1  remembt  r  two  different  instances  of 
a  very  aniusitig  curiosity  on  the  part  of  certain  noble  hidics, 
wiiich  ))roinpled  tlnin  to  avail  tlu  insdves  of  our  cliartcri'd 
lilierty  in  the  matter,  for  the  obtaining  of  tidings  of  the 
Avays  and  manners  of  the  inmates  of  certain  houses,  wliicli 
there  was  no  j»ossibility  of  their  ever  Ii;i\  ing  an  oj>portu- 
nitv  of  observing  for  tluniselves.     But  on  ransacking  my 


224  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

memory  for  instances  of  the  kind,  I  must  say  that  all  that 
occur  to  me  refer  to  curiosity  of  the  upper  respecting  the 
nether  world,  and  that  I  do  not  recollect  any  vice  vcrsd 
cases. 

I  have  said  that  the  rule  of  exclusion  as  regards  all  that 
part  of  the  Vienna  world  not  nobly  born  was  absolute. 
But  if  absoluteness  can  be  conceived  as  ever  becoming 
more  absolute,  tlic  social  law  did  so  in  the  case  of  Jewish 
families.  These  were  numerous,  and  many  of  them  in 
respect  of  wealth,  and  more  in  respect  of  culture,  were  on 
a  par  with  the  best  and  highest  portion  of  the  Viennese 
society.  I  remember  one  Jewish  family  in  particular, 
consisting  of  a  widow  and  her  daughter  and  her  niece, 
M'ith  M'hom  "we  became  intimately  acquainted,  and  in 
whom  and  whose  surroundings  we  found  a  level  of  high 
culture  (taking  that  word  in  its  largest  extension  to  all 
that  goes  to  form  the  idiosyncrasy  of  a  human  being),  far 
in  advance  of  anvthing  we  met  with  amonij  their  social 
superiors. 

In  fact,  the  grand  monde  of  tliat  far-distant  day  in 
Vienna  was  frivolous,  uni^tellectual,  and,  I  am  afraid  I 
must  say,  uneducated  to  a  remarkable  degree.  It  had  its 
own  peculiar  charm,  which  consisted  in  the  most  perfectly 
high-bred  tone  of  manner  combined  with  complete  sim- 
plicity, the  absolute  absence  of  any  sort  of  affectation 
whatever,  and  great  good-nature.  But  in  all  my  experi- 
ence of  them  there  was  not  to  be  found  a  scdon  among 
them  of  equal  social  attraction  to  that  of  my  above-men- 
tioned JcAvish  friends. 

But  all  this  refers  to  the  social  conditions  of  a  day 
which,  as  my  recent  visits  to  Vienna  have  shoAvn  me,  is 
one  passed  away  and  gone.  It  belongs  to  the  days  when 
"  Vater  Franz  "  was,  or,  to  be  accurate,  had  only  two  years 
previously  ceased  to  be,  the  idol  of  Austrian,  and  especial- 
ly Viennese,  loyalty  and  affection.  The  most  striking  in- 
stances of  the  devotion  of  all  classes  of  the  population  to 
their  emperor  were  constantly  narrated  to  me.  I  si^ccially 
remember  the  tale  of  one  occasion,  when  the  emperor  had 
remained  shut  up  in  the  palace  for  three  or  four  days — or 
perhaps  the  period  was  somewhat  longer — because  he  had 


IX    AUSTRIA.  225 

caught  a  cold.  A  cloud  seemed  to  have  passed  over  the 
blue  Vienna  sky.  The  occasion  of  his  first  drive  through 
the  streets  of  the  city  after  his  little  indisposition  was  an 
ovation.  The  people  filled  the  streets,  and  hung  about  his 
carriage.  Market-women  poked  their  faces  in  at  the  win- 
dow to  assure  themselves  that  "  Vater  Franz"  was  restored 
to  them  none  the  worse  for  his  confinement.  It  was,  to  the 
best  of  my  remembrance,  on  every  Thursday,  at  that  time, 
that  it  had  been  the  emperor's  practice  to  devote  a  certain 
number  of  hours  in  the  day  to  receiving  any  one  of  his 
subjects  who  had  notified  in  the  proper  quarter  a  desire 
to  speak  with  him.  But  might  not  some  Socialist  or  Ni- 
hilist, or  other  description  of  radical,  have  easily  shot  him 
at  one  of  those  entirely  unguarded  interviews  ?  Aye  !  but 
I  am  writing  of  half  a  century  ago,  before  such  things  and 
persons  had  appeared  upon  the  scene.  And  assuredly  the 
possibility  of  such  a  catastrophe  had  never  entered  into 
the  brain  of  any  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the  Kaiser- 
stadt. 

There  was  one  among  the  many  acquaintances  we  made 
at  Vienna  who  belonged  in  no  wise  to  any  division  of  its 
society,  but  who  was,  like  ourselves,  to  be  met  with  among 
them  all.  This  was  old  Cramer  the  pianist.  I  took  a 
great  liking  to  him.  ']"'he  mingled  simjilicity,  bo/i/iomie, 
shrewdness,  and  old-world  courtesy  of  the  old  man  de- 
lighted me.  He  was  full  of  old-world  stories,  generally 
ending  any  anecdote  of  some  one  of  the  many  notable  per- 
sonages he  had  known  with  a  sigh,  and  "  Well,  peace  to 
his  irnnicf /""  pronounced  as  one  syllable,  as  I  have  men- 
tioned in  an  earlier  i)age.  For  old  John  Cramer  had  lived 
in  the  days  before  the  schoolmaster  had  gone  "  abroad  " 
so  widely  as  in  these  latter  times.  Thi-  old  inaestro  had 
just  written  a  mono<ly  to  the  memory  of  ]\Ialil)ran,  then 
recently  lost  to  the  world  of  music  prematurely.  "  It  is 
full  of  feeling,"  writes  my  mother,  "and,  as  I  listened  to 
this  veteran  pianist,  as  lie  performed  for  me  his  simple 
and  classic  little  composition,  and  marked  tlie  delicacy 
and  finish  of  his  style,  unencumbered  by  a  single  move- 
ment in  wliich  the  conce[itions  of  a  harmonious  genius  are 
nuide  tf>  give  wav  before  flie  nieretrieiuus  glorv  of  active 
10*  ' 


226  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

fingers,  I  felt  at  the  A*ery  bottom  of  my  heart  that  I  was 
rococo,  incorrigiblv  rococo,  and  that  such  I  should  live  and 
die." 

Another  specialty,  which  in  those  days  gave  to  Vienna 
much  of  the  physiognomy  which  made  it  different  in  out- 
Avard  appearance  from  any  other  of  the  great  capitals  of 
Europe,  and  which  would  not  be  observed  there  at  the 
present  time,  was  caused  by  the  heterogeneousness  of  the 
countries  which  compose  the  empire,  and  the  very  motley 
appearance  of  the  specimens  of  all  of  them  which  might 
be  found  in  the  capital.  A  Parisian  tells  you  in  France 
that  a  provincial  in  the  streets  of  Paris  is  as  recognizable 
at  a  glance  as  if  he  were  ticketed  on  the  forehead.  And 
so  he  may  be  to  a  Parisian.  But  the  eccentricities  of  his 
appearance  are  not  such  as  to  impart  any  variety  to  the 
moving  panorama  in  the  streets  of  Paris  as  it  appeal's  to 
a  stranger.  The  Breton,  the  Proven9al,  the  Bearnais 
makes  himself  look,  when  he  visits  Paris,  as  much  like  a 
Parisian  as  he  can,  and  flatters  himself,  no  doubt,  that  he 
succeeds  perfectly.  But  Croatians,  Bohemians,  wild-look- 
ing figures  from  Transylvania  might  be  seen  in  the  streets 
of  Vienna,  precisely  as  they  might  have  been  seen  in  their 
own  distant  homes.  Strange  and  not  a  little  sinister-look- 
ing groups  of  Hungarian  gypsies,  encampments  outside 
and  at  the  foot  of  the  walls  of  Bohemian  wagoners,  caf- 
taned  Jews  from  the  distant  parts  of  Galicia,  all  added  to 
the  strangeness  and  much  to  the  pictures<pieness  of  the 
city.  I  remember  one  especial  group,  the  extreme  barbar- 
ism of  whose  appearance,  incredible  filthiness,  and  wild, 
picturesque,  but  very  forbidding  physiognomies,  particu- 
larly attracted  my  attention.  I  was  told  that  they  were 
gypsies  from  Croatia. 

On  the  whole  it  is — or,  rather,  I  should  say  was — evident 
that  one  has  travelled  far  eastward  to  reach  Vienna,  and 
the  whole  physiognomy  of  the  place  is  modified  by  that 
fact. 

I  am  unwilling  to  close  this  chapter  of  my  Vienna  rem- 
iniscences without  mentioning  a  lady  whose  very  ex- 
ceptional histrionic  talent  had  impressed  me  as  vividly  as 
it  did  njy  mother,  who  has  given  an  honorable  place  in 


I\   AUSTRIA.  227 

her  volumes  to  Madame  Rcttich.  I  subsequently  became 
intimate  with  her  very  charming  daughter  in  Italy,  and  it 
is  from  her  that  I  learned  the  fact  that  her  mother  had 
been  the  first  actress  to  personate  Goethe's  "  Gretehen " 
on  the  stage.  Considei'able  doubt  had  been  felt  as  to  the 
expediency  of  the  attempt.  But  ]\[adarae  Rettich  made 
it — not  for  the  first  time  at  Vienna,  but  at  some  provincial 
theatre — with  entire  success. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

IN  AUSTRIA — {continued). 

Of  all  my  reminiscences  of  Vienna,  and  those  I  saw 
there,  the  most  interesting  are  those  connected  with  my 
introduction  to  Prince  Metternich. 

The  present  generation  is  perhaps  hardly  aware — or  not 
habitually  so — of  the  largeness  of  the  space  Metternich 
occupied  in  the  political  world  half  a  century  ago.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  Europe  in  those  days  thought  as 
mucii  about  Metternich  as  it  does  in  these  days  about  Bis- 
marck. Of  course  the  nature  of  the  two  men,  as  of  the 
circumstances  with  which  they  were  called  on  to  deal,  is 
far  as  the  poles  asunder.  But  on  the  European  stage- 
not,  of  course,  on  the  English — no  actor  of  that  day  could 
compete  with  Prince  Metternich  in  the  importance  of  the 
position  assigned  to  him  by  the  world  in  general,  as  no 
actor  of  this  day  can  with  Prince  Bismarck. 

It  is  hardly  enough  to  say,  as  is  said  above,  that  the 
nature  of  the  two  men  was  as  far  as  the  poles  asunder;  it 
was  singularly  contrasted.  To  both  of  them  the  salus 
patricB  has  ever  been  the  suprema  ex;  and  both  of  them, 
with  increasingly  accepted  wisdom,  have  sought  that  su- 
preme end  in  the  strengthening  of  the  principle  of  author- 
ity. The  history  of  human  affairs  has  not  yet  sufficiently 
unfolded  itself  for  it  to  be  possible  to  say  in  this  year  of 
grace  1887  whether  they  have  done  so  with  very  differ- 
ent measures  of  success.  But  it  is  very  curious  to  mark 
the  similarity  thus  far  existing  between  the  two  great  min- 
isters, chancellors,  and  statesmen,  combined  with  such 
very  marked  (though  perhaps  in  fact  more  or  less  super- 
ficial) differences  between  the  two  men. 

Prince  Bismarck  has  not  been  thought,  even  by  those 
who  have  most  thoroughly  admired  and  applauded  his 
fortiter  in  re,  to  have  very  successfully  combined  Avith  it 


IX  AUSTRIA.  229 

the  suaviter  in  modo.  The  habit  of  clothing  the  iron 
hand  with  a  velvet  glove  has  not  been  considered  to  be 
among  his  characteristics.  And  these  qualities  were  very 
pre-eminently  those  of  the  other  all-powerful  minister. 

And  the  outward  and  bodily  presentment  of  the  two 
men  was  as  contrasted  and  as  expressive  of  this  difference 
as  that  of  two  hiijh-born  gentlemen  could  well  be.  I  saw 
recently,  in  Berlin,  a  portrait  by  Lembach  of  the  great 
North  German  chancellor.  It  is  one  of  those  portraits 
which  eminently  accomplishes  that  Avhich  it  is  the  highest 
excellence  of  every  great  portrait  to  achieve,  in  that  it 
gives  those  who  look  at  it  with  some  faculty  of  insight, 
not  only  that  outward  semblance  of  the  man,  which  all 
can  recognize,  but  something  more,  Avhich  it  is  the  artist's 
business  to  reveal  to  those  who  have  not  the  gift  of  read- 
ing it  for  themselves.  That  portrait,  in  common  with 
most  of  those  by  the  great  masters  in  the  art  of  portrait- 
ure, reveals  to  you,  with  an  instantly  recognized  truthful- 
ness, the  interior  and  intrinsic  nature  of  the  man,  with  a 
luminousness  which  your  own  gaze  on  the  living  person 
would  not  achieve  for  you.  I  have  also  before  me  a  por- 
trait of  Prince  Metternich,  made  at  the  time  of  which  I 
am  writing,  by  M.  Ilervieu,  in  crayons,  for  my  mother. 
And  without,  of  course,  claiming  either  for  the  artist  or 
fur  the  style  of  work  such  i)ower  as  belongs  to  the  por- 
trait of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  I  may  say  that  it 
does  very  faithfully  and  expressively  give  you  the  pre- 
sentment of  a  man  in  whom  strentfth  of  will,  tenacitv  of 
purpose,  and  high  intellectual  ])0\ver  are  comliiiu-d  with 
suave  gentleness  of  manner  and  an  air  of  high-bred  cour- 
tesy. 

77io(  is  the  man  whose  lineaments  I  look  on  in  the 
sketch,  and  that  is  the  man  with  whom  I  had  many  op- 
portunities of  lu'ing  in  C()ni|i:ii)y,  and  liad  on  several  oc- 
casions the  high  honor  of  conversing.  Whether  it  might 
be  possible  for  a  man  devoid  of  all  advantage  of  feature 
to  produce  on  those  brought  into  contact  with  Iiim  tlio 
same  remarkable  impression  (»f  dignity,  the  consciousness 
of  high  station,  ;ui(l  jierfi-ction  of  courtly  bearing  com- 
l>ined  with  a  ptlliieid  simplicity  of  manner,  I  cannot  say. 


•230  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

But  it  is  true  that  all  this  was  rendered  more  possible  in 
the  case  of  Metternich  by  great  personal  handsomeness. 
He  was,  of  course,  when  I  saw  hira,  what  may  be  called 
an  old  man — a  white-headed  old  man — but  I  doubt  if  at 
any  time  of  his  life  he  could  have  been  a  better-looking 
man. 

My  mother  notes  in  her  book  on  "Vienna  and  the  Aus- 
trians"  that,  as  we  were  returning  from  a  dinner  at  the 
house  of  the  English  ambassador,  Sir  Frederic  Lamb, 
where  we  had  just  met  Metternich  for  the  first  time,  I 
observed  tliat  he  was  just  such  a  man  as  my  fancy  painted 
Sir  William  Temple  to  have  been,  and  that  she  thought 
the  illustration  a  good  one.  And  I  don't  think  that  any 
subsequent  knowledge  or  reflection  would  lead  me  to  can- 
cel it. 

He  was  a  man  of  middle  height,  slenderly  made  rather 
than  thin,  though  carrying  no  superfluous  flesh  ;  upright, 
though  without  the  somewhat  rigid  uprightness  which 
usually  characterizes  military  training  to  the  last,  how- 
ever far  distant  the  training  time  may  have  been  ;  and 
singularly  graceful  in  movement  and  gesture.  He  must 
have  been  a  man  of  sound  body  and  even  robust  consti- 
tution, but  he  did  not  look  so  at  the  time  of  which  I  am 
speaking.  Not  that  he  had  the  appearance  or  the  manner 
of  a  man  out  of  health  ;  but  his  extreme  refinement  and 
delicacy  of  feature  seemed  scarcely  consistent  with  bodily 
strength.  I  remember  a  man — the  old  Dr.  Xott  spoken 
of  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book— who  must  have  been 
about  the  same  age  with  Metternich  when  I  first  saw  him, 
who  equalled  him  in  clear-cut  delicacy  and  refinement  of 
feature,  who  was  certainly  a  high-bred  gentleman,  not 
altogether  ignorant  of  the  ways  and  manners  of  courts, 
and  who  was  emphatically  a  man  of  intellectual  pursuits 
and  habits.  But  there  all  equality  and  similarity  between 
the  two  men  ends.  Good,  refined,  elegant  Dr.  Nott  pro- 
duced no  such  impression  on  those  near  him  as  the  Aus- 
trian statesman  did.  There  must  have  been  therefore  a 
aomething  in  the  latter  beyond  all  those  advantages  of 
person  and  feature  with  which  he  was  so  eminently  en- 
dowed.    And  this  "something"  I  take  to  have  been  pro- 


IN   AUSTRIA.  231 

duced  partly  by  native  intellectual  power,  and  partly  by 
the  long  possession  of  quite  uncontested  authority. 

Ujjon  that  first  occasion  I  had  no  opportunity  of  hear- 
ing any  word  from  Metternich  save  one  gracious  phrase 
on  being  presented  to  him.  lie  took  my  mother  in  to 
dinner.  I  was  seated  at  a  far  distant  part  of  the  huge 
round  table,  where  I  could  see,  but  not  hear.  And  it  was 
the  fashion  in  Vienna  for  people  to  leave  the  house  at 
which  they  had  been  dining  almost  immediately  after 
taking  their  cup  of  coffee.  But  before  the  party  sepa- 
rated it  had  been  arranged  that  we  were  to  dine  at  the 
minister's  house  on  the  following  Monday. 

But  all  this  time  I  have  said  no  word  of  the  Princess 
Metternich,  who  also  dined  with  Sir  Frederic  Lamb  on 
that,  to  me,  memorable  day.  In  one  word,  she  was  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  women  I  ever  looked  on.  She  was 
rather  small,  but  most  delicately  and  perfectly  formed  in 
person,  and  the  extreme  beauty  of  her  face  was  but  a  part, 
and  not  the  most  peerless  part,  of  the  charm  of  it.  To 
say  that  it  sj)arkled  with  expression,  and  an  expression 
which  changed  with  each  changing  topic  of  conversation, 
is  by  no  means  enough.  Every  feature  of  her  face  was 
instinct  with  meaning  and  intelligence.  The  first  impres- 
sion her  face  gave  me  was  that  of  a  laughter-loving  and 
tmithie  disposition.  But  my  mother,  who  saw  much  of 
lier — more,  of  course,  than  it  was  possible  for  her  to  see 
of  the  chancellor  (especially  while  the  princess  was  silting 
for  lier  portrait  by  ^I.  Ib-rvieu  for  her,  during  wliich  sit- 
ting my  mother,  by  her  express  stijiulation,  was  always 
with  her),  and  who  learned  to  love  her  dearly,  testified 
that  there  was  much  more  behind  ;  that  licr  unhounded 
affection  and  veneration  for  her  husband  was  not  incom- 
patible with  the  formation  of  thoughtful  o])inions  of  her 
own  upon  the  questions  which  were  then  exercising  the 
minds  of  politicians,  as  well  as  all  the  higher  topics  of 
human  interest. 

I  dined  at  Metternicirs  taliU'  on  the  day  mentioned 
above  as  well  as  on  sundry  other  occasions  ;  on  some  of 
which  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  make  one  of  the  little 
circle  enjoying  his  conversation.     (Jf  course  the  dinner- 


232  WHAT    I   REMEMBER. 

parties  at  the  prince's  house  were  affairs  of  much  magnifi- 
cence and  s])leiulor.  But  I  liad,  on  more  tlian  one  occa- 
sion, the  higher  privilege  of  dining  with  him  enfamille. 

On  both  and  all  occasions,  whetjier  it  was  a  grand  ban- 
quet of  thirty  persons  or  more,  or  a  quite  unceremonious 
dinner  e/i  /<( untie,  the  prince's  practice  was  the  same,  and 
was  peculiar. 

He  did  not  in  any  wise  partake  of  the  spread  before 
him.  He  had  always  dined  previously  at  one  o'clock. 
But  he  had  a  loaf  of  brown  bread  and  a  plate  of  butter 
put  before  him  ;  and,  while  his  guests  were  dining,  he 
occupied  himself  with  spreading  and  cutting  a  succession 
of  daintily  thin  slices  of  bread-and-butter  for  his  own 
repast. 

Victor  Emmanuel  used  similarly  to  dine  in  the  middle 
of  the  day,  and  at  his  state  banquets  used  to  take  no  more 
active  part  than  was  involved  in  honoring  them  with  his 
presence.  But  Metternich,  I  think,  w^ould  not  have  said 
what  my  friend  G.  P.  Marsh,  the  United  States  minister, 
once  told  me  Victor  Emmanuel  said  to  him  on  one  occasion. 
Mr.  Marsh,  as  dean  of  the  diplomatic  body  (it  was  before 
any  of  the  great  powers  sent  ambassadors  to  the  court  of 
the  Quirinal)  was  seated  next  to  his  majesty  at  table.  In- 
numerable dishes  were  being  carried  round  in  long  suc- 
cession, when  the  king,  turning  to  his  neighbor  with  a 
groan,  said,  "Will  this  neve?-  come  to  an  end?"  I  have 
no  doubt  Marsh  cordially  echoed  his  majesty's  sentiments 
on  the  subject. 

The  words  of  men  who  have  occupied  positions  in  any 
degree  similar  to  that  of  Prince  Metternich  are  apt  to  be 
picked  up,  remembered,  and  recorded,  when  in  truth  the 
only  value  of  the  utterances  in  question  is  to  show  that 
such  men  do  occasionally  think  and  speak  like  other  mor- 
tals. And  my  note-books  are  not  Avithout  similar  evidences 
of  gobemoucherie  on  my  own  part.  But  there  is  one  sub- 
ject on  which  I  have  heard  Metternich  speak  words  which 
really  are  worth  recording.  That  subject  was  the  Empe- 
ror Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

Of  course  on  such  a  topic  the  Austrian  statesman  might 
have  said  much  that  he  was  not  at  liberty  to  say  ;  and 


IN'   AUSTRIA.  233 

there  was  also  much  that  he  might  have  said  which  could 
not  have  found  place  in  one  half-.hour's  conversation.  The 
particular  point  upon  which  I  heard  him  speak  was  the 
celebrated  interview  at  which  the  emperor  lost  his  tem- 
per because  he  could  not  induce  Austria  to  declare  war. 

Metternich  described  the  way  in  which  the  emperor, 
with  the  manners  of  the  guardroom  rather  than  those  of 
the  council-chamber,  suddenly  and  violently  tossed  his 
cocked-hat  into  the  corner  of  the  room,  "  evidentlv  ex- 
pecting  that  I  should  pick  it  up  and  present  it  to  him," 
said  the  old  statesman  ;  "  but  1  judged  it  better  to  ignore 
the  action  and  the  intention  altogether,  and  his  majesty, 
after  a  minute  or  two,  rose  and  ])icked  it  up  himself." 

He  went  on  to  express  his  conviction  that  all  this  dis- 
play of  passion  on  the  emperor's  part  was  altogether  af- 
jfected,  fictitious,  and  calculated  ;  and  said  that  similar 
manifestations  of  intemperate  violence  were  by  no  means 
infrequently  used  by  the  emperor  with  a  view  to  produce 
calculated  effects,  and  were  often  more  or  less  successful. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  most 
cvnical  observer  could  have  detected  the  slightest  shade 
of  bitterness  in  the  words  or  the  manner  of  Prince  Met- 
ternich, On  tJiat  field  of  battle,  at  all  events,  the  honors 
did  not  fall  to  the  share  of  Napoleon.  And  his  aged  ad- 
versary spoke  of  the  encounter  with  the  amused  pleasantry 
and  easy  smile  of  a  veteran  who  recounts  passages  at  arms 
in  wliifh  his  part  has  been  that  best  worth  telling. 

Jiut  witli  a  graver  manner  he  went  on  to  say,  that  the 
most  unpleasant  )»art  of  the  circumstance  connected  with 
dealing  with  Napoleon  arose  from  the  fact  that  he  was 
not  a  gentleman  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  or  anything 
like  one.  Of  course  the  prince,  with  his  unblemished  six- 
teen quarterings,  was  not  talking  of  anything  connected 
with  Napoleon's  birth.  And  I  doul)t  whether  he  may 
have  been  aware  that  Najioleon  Honajiarte  was  teelini- 
eally  gentle  by  virtue  of  his  descent  fmni  an  aneient  Tus- 
can territorial  nnl)le  race.  Metternich,  in  cxiiressing  the 
opinion  quoted,  was  not  thinking  of  anything  of  the  kind, 
lie  was  speaking  of  the  moral  nature  of  the  man.  In  these 
days,  after  all  that  has  since  that  time  been  published  on 


234  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

the  subject,  tbe  ex]ircssion  of  Metternicli  seems  almost 
like  the  enimciation  of  an  accepted  and  recognized  truism. 
Nevertheless,  even  now  the  judgment  on  such  a  point,  of 
one  who  had  enjoyed  (no,  certainly  not  enjoyed,  but  we 
will  say  undergone)  so  much  personal  intercourse  with 
the  great  conqueror,  is  worth  recording. 

3IV  mother  has  given  an  account  of  the  same  conver- 
sation,  which  I  have  here  recorded,  in  the  second  volume 
of  her  book  on  "  Vienna  and  the  Austrians."  Her  account 
tallies  with  mine  in  all  essentials  (I  did  not  read  it — in 
tJils  half-century — till  after  I  had  written  the  above  sen- 
tences) ;  but  she  relates  one  or  two  circumstances  which 
I  have  omitted  ;  and  she  apparently  did  not  hear  what  the 
prince  said  afterwards  about  Napoleon  as  a  gentleman — 
or  perhaps  it  was  said  upon  another  occasion,  which  I  can- 
not assert  may  not  have  been  the  case. 

One  point  of  my  mother's  narrative  should  not  be 
omitted.  Metternicli,  observing  that  it  was  impossible 
for  any  human  being  to  have  heard  what  passed  between 
him  and  Napoleon,  but  that  everybody  had  read  all  about 
it,  said  that  Savary  relates  truly  the  incident  of  the  hat, 
xcldch  jnnsf  have  been  told  him  hy  Kcqioleon  Jdmself.  This 
is  very  curious. 

Another  amusing  anecdote  recounted  by  Metternich  one 
evening,  when  my  mother  and  myself,  together  with  only 
a  very  small  circle  of  hahitites  were  present,  I  remember 
well,  and  intended  to  give  my  own  reminiscences  of  it 
in  this  place.  But  I  find  the  stor}""  so  Avell  told  by  my 
mother,  and  it  is  so  well  worth  rejjeating,  that  I  will  re- 
produce her  telling  of  it. 

"During  the  hundred  days  of  Napoleon's  extraordinary 
but  abortive  restoration,  he  found  himself  comjK'lled  by 
circumstances, /^o/<  (jre  raul  r/re,  to  a))})oint  Fouclie  minister 
of  police.  About  ten  days  after  this  arch-traitor  was  so 
placed.  Prince  Metternich  was  informed  that  a  stranger 
desired  to  see  him.  lie  was  admitted,  and  the  prince 
recognized  him  as  an  individual  whom  he  had  kiK)wn  as 
an  employe  at  Paris.  Uut  he  now  apj)eared  under  a  bor- 
rowed name,  bringing  only  a  fragment  of  Fouche's  hand- 
writing, as  testimony  that  he  was  sent  by  him.     His  mis- 


IN   AUSTRIA.  235 

sion  he  said  was  of  the  most  secret  nature,  and,  in  fact, 
only  extended  to  informing  the  prince  that  Fouche  was 
desirous  of  offering  to  his  consideration  propositions  of  the 
most  important  nature.  Tlie  messenger  declared  himself 
wholly  ignorant  of  their  purport,  being  authorized  only  to 
invite  the  prince  to  a  secret  conference  tlirough  the  me- 
dium of  some  trusty  envoy,  who  should  be  despatched  to 
Paris  for  the  purpose.  Tlie  prince's  reply  was,  '  You  must 
permit  me  to  think  of  this.'  The  agent  retired,  and  the 
Austrian  minister  repaired  to  the  emperor,  and  recounted 
what  had  passed.  'And  what  do  you  think  of  doing?' 
said  the  emperor. 

"'I  think,'  replied  the  prince,  'that  we  should  send  a 
confidential  agent,  not  to  Paris,  hut  to  some  other  place 
that  may  be  fixed  upon,  who  shall  have  no  other  instruc- 
tions but  to  listen  to  all  that  the  Frenchman,  who  will 
meet  him  there,  shall  impart,  and  bring  us  faithfully  an 
account  of  it.' 

"  Tlie  emperor  signified  his  approbation;  'And  then,' 
continued  the  prince,  'as  we  were  good  and  faithful  allies, 
and  would  do  nothinsj  unknown  to  those  with  whom  we 
were  pledged  to  act  in  common,  I  hastened  to  inform  the 
allied  sovereigns,  who  were  still  at  Vienna,  of  the  arrival 
of  the  messenger,  and  the  manner  in  which  I  j^roposed  to 
act.'  The  mysterious  messenger  was  accordingly  dis- 
missed with  an  answer  purporting  that  an  Austrian,  call- 
ing himself  Werner,  should  be  at  a  certain  hotel  in  tlie 
town  of  liasle,  in  Switzerland,  on  such  a  day,  with  in- 
structions to  l)car  and  convey  to  Prince  Metfernich  wliat- 
ever  tlie  individual  sent  to  meet  hitn  should  deliver.  This 
meeting  took  place  at  the  spot  and  hour  fixed.  The  dip- 
lomatic agents  saluted  each  other  with  fitting  courtesy, 
and  seated  themselves  viis-d-vis,  each  assuming  the  attitude 
of  a  listener. 

'"Mav  I  ask  vou,  sir,'  said  the  envov  from  Paris,  at 
length,  'what  is  the  object  of  our  meeting?' 

"'My  object,  sir,'  replied  the  Austrian,  'is  to  listen  to 
whatever  you  may  be  disposed  to  say.' 

"'And  mine,' rejoined  tlie  ]'^-en<linian,  '  is  solely  to  hear 
what  you  may  have  to  communicate.' 


230  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

"Keitlier  the  one  nor  the  other  had  anything  further 
to  add  to  this  interesting  interchange  of  information,  and 
after  remaining  together  long  enough  for  each  to  be  satis- 
fied that  the  other  had  nothing  to  tell,  they  separated  with 
perfect  civility,  both  returning  precisely  as  wise  as  they 
came. 

"  Some  time  after  the  imperial  restoration  had  given 
way  to  the  royal  one  in  France,  the  mystery  was  explained. 
Fouche,  cette  revolution  incarnee,  as  the  prince  called  him, 
no  sooner  saw  his  old  master  and  benefactor  restored  to 
power  than  he  imagined  the  means  of  betraying  him,  and 
accordingly  despatched  the  messenger,who  presented  him- 
self to  Prince  Metternich.  Fouche  was  minister  of  police, 
and  probably  all  the  world  would  have  agreed  with  him 
in  thinking  that  if  any  man  in  France  could  safely  send 
off  a  secret  messengrer  it  was  himself.  But  all  the  world 
would  have  been  mistaken,  and  so  was  Fouche.  The 
argus  eyes  of  Napoleon  discovered  the  proceeding.  The 
first  messenger  was  seized  and  examined  on  his  return. 
The  minister  of  police  was  informed  of  the  discovery,  and 
coolly  assured  by  his  imperial  master  that  he  would  prob- 
ably be  hanged.  The  second  messenger  was  then  des- 
patched by  Napoleon  himself  with  exactly  the  same  in- 
structions as  the  envoy  who  met  him  from  Vienna,  to  the 
effect  that  he  was  to  listen  to  all  that  might  be  said  to 
him,  and  when  questioned  himself,  confess,  what  was  the 
exact  truth,  that  all  he  knew  of  the  mission  on  which  he 
came  was  that  he  was  expected  to  remember  and  repeat 
all  that  he  should  hear." 

On  the  30th  of  November  in  that  year  I  witnessed  the 
by  far  most  gorgeous  pageant  I  ever  saw — for  I  was  not 
in  Westminster  Abbey  on  the  21st  of  June,  1887 — the  in- 
stallation of  eleven  Knights  of  the  Golden  Fleece.  As  a 
pageant,  nothing,  I  think,  could  exceed  the  gorgeous  and 
historic  magnificence  of  this  ceremony;  but  no  "Kings  of 
the  Isles  1;rought  gifts,"  nor  was  the  imperial  body-guard 
composed  of  sovereign  princes  or  their  representatives. 
In  significance,  that  show  and  all  others  such,  even  the 
meeting  of  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  itself,  is  eclipsed 
by  the  ever-memorable  day  which  England  has  just  seen. 


IX   AUSTRIA.  237 

But  it  was  not  only  a  very  grand  but  a  very  interesting 
sight,  the  whole  details  of  which  may  be  found  by  those 
interested  in  such  matters  very  accurately  described  in  the 
volume  by  my  mother  which  I  have  so  often  quoted. 

On  the  very  next  day  I  saw  another  sight  which  I  think 
it  probable  no  subsequent  sight-seer  in  Vienna  during  all 
the  half-century  that  has  elapsed  since  that  day  has  seen, 
or  any  will  see  in  the  future.     It  was  a  sight  more  mon- 
strously contrasted  with  the  scene  I  had  yesterday  wit- 
nessed than  it  could  well  enter  into  the  human  mind  to 
conceive.     It  was  a  visit  to  the  vast,  long-disused  cata- 
combs under  the  cathedral  church  of  St.  Stephen.     It  was 
then  about  sixty  years,  as  I  was  told — now  more  than  a 
hundred — since  these  vaults  were  used  as  a  place  of  sepul- 
ture.    Here,  as  in  many  other  well-known  instances,  the 
special  peculiarities  of  soil  and  atmosphere  prevent  all  the 
usual  processes  of  decay,  and  the  tens  of   thousands  of 
corpses  which  have  been  deposited  there — very  many  un- 
cothned    and    unshrouded   during   the   visitation   of    the 
plague  in  1713 — have  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
mummies.    They  retain  not  only  the  form  of  human  beings, 
but  in  many  cases  the  features  retain  the  ghastly  expres- 
sion which  was  their  last  when  the  breath  of  life  left  them. 
The  countless  forms,  which  never  apparently  from  the  day 
they  were  deposited  there  had  been  subjected  to  any  sort 
of  arrangement  whatever,  lay  in  monstrous  confused  heaps, 
mingled  with  shattered  remains  of  coffins.     The  skin  in 
every  ease  had  become  of  the  consistency  of  very  thick 
and*tough  leather,  not  quite  so  thick  as  that  used  for  the 
sole  of  a  stout  shoe,  but  a  goo<l  dial  thicker  than  what  is 
generally  used  for  the  upjjcr  leather  even  of  the  stoutest. 
There  was  not  the  slightest  disagreeable  odor  in  any  part 
of  the  vaults.     In  the  course  of  a  long  life  I  have  seen 
very  many  strange  sights,  but  never  any  one   to  match 
that  in  weird  strangeness  and  impressive  horror.     If  any 
sight  on   ciirth  merits  tlie   degraded  epithet  "awful,"   it 
mnst  l»i'  that  of  those  fearsome  catacombs. 

Wl)at  1  liavc  written  here  conveys  but  a  very  imperfect 
notion  of  all  that  we  saw  and  felt  during  our  progress 
througli  that  terrihlc  succession  of  vaults.      Hut  I  abstain 


238  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

from  clironiclinjT  the  sigrhts  of  tbis  charnel-house  for  the 
same  reason  that  I  refrained  from  any  attempt  at  describ- 
ing the  cloth  of  gold  and  the  velvets  and  the  silks  and 
satins  of  the  previous  day.  The  detailed  description  of 
them  may  all  be  found  in  my  mother's  book,  in  the  forti- 
eth chapter  of  which  the  reader  so  inclined  ma}^  sup  full 
of  horrors  to  his  heart's  content.  I  will  content  myself 
with  testifying  to  the  perfect  accuracy  and  absence  of  ex- 
aggeration in  the  account  there  given. 

]\Iy  mother  expresses  disapproval  of  the  authorities  who 
jiermit  such  an  exhibition,  and  she  is  very  vague  as  to  the 
means  by  which  we  obtained  admission  to  it.  Nor  does 
my  memory  furnish  any  clear  information  upon  this  point, 
but  I  have  a  strong  impi'ession  that  it  was  all  an  affair  of 
bribery  managed  "under  the  rose"  (what  a  phrase  for 
such  an  exploit  !)  by  back-stairs  influence  in  some  way.  I 
do  not  think  that  the  first  comer,  with  however  large  a  fee 
in  his  hand,  could  have  caused  the  door  of  that  chamber 
of  horrors  to  be  opened  to  him.  There  are,  it  is  true,  sun- 
dry words  and  incidents  in  my  mother's  account  which 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  showman  guide  who  attended 
us  was  in  the  habit  of  similarly  attending  others  ;  but  I 
am  persuaded  that  my  mother  was  in  error  in  supposing, 
if  she  did  suppose,  that  to  be  the  case.  Unquestionably 
the  man  was  at  home  in  the  gruesome  place,  and  well 
acquainted  with  all  the  parts  of  it,  but  I  have  reason  to 
be  persuaded  that  his  familiarity  with  it  arose  simply  from 
the  habit  of  pillaging  the  remains  of  the  cofiins  for  fire- 
wood ! 

Not  long  after  this  memorable  expedition  to  the  cata- 
combs I  received  a  communication  from  Birmingham 
which  rendered  it  necessary  for  me  to  leave  Vienna  and 
turn  my  face  homeward. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

A  T     B  I  R  M  1  N  G  U  A  M. 

I  LEFT  Vienna  by  the  carriage  which  carried  the  im- 
perial mail,  shortly  before  Christmas,  in  very  severe 
weather.  It  would  be  impossible  to  construct  a  more 
comfortable  carriage  for  the  use  of  those  to  whom  speed 
is  no  object.  It  carried  only  two  passengers  and  the 
courier,  and  was  abundantly  roomy  and  well  cushioned. 
It  carried,  of  course,  also  all  the  mails  from  Hungary  and 
from  Vienna  to  the  north  and  westward,  including  those 
to  Munich  and  Paris  and  London.  And  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection  all  these  des])atches,  |)rinted  as  well  as  written, 
were  carried  in  the  hind  boot  of  our  conveyance.  If  they 
were  not  there  I  can't  guess  where  they  were, 

I  remember  tliat  I  was  tremendously  great-coated,  hav- 
inf.  besides  my  "box-coat,"  a  "buffalo  robe,"  which  I  had 
brought  back  with  me  from  America,  and  I  have  no  recol- 
lection of  suffering  at  all  from  cold.  We  proceeded  in 
very  leisurely  fashion  ;  and  I  well  remember  the  reply  of 
the  courier  to  my  question,  how  long  we  were  to  remain 
at  the  place  at  which  we  were  to  dine,  given  with  an  air 
of  niihl  sur])rise  at  my  thinking  such  a  demand  necessary. 
"Till  we  have  done  dinner,"  said  the  courier — ''Bis  wir 
qcspcist  hfihen  "/  The  words  seem  still  to  (■(  lio  in  my  ears ! 
To  me,  whose  experiences  were  of  the  Quicksilver  mail  ! 

When  we  had  done  diiiiu-r,  and  he  asked  n\e  with  lei- 
surelv  courtesy  if  I  had  dined  well,  he  said,  in  answer  to 
my  confessing  that  I  could  have  wishe<l  nuthing  more,  un- 
less it  were  a  cu|^  of  coffee,  if  perehancr  there  wire  one 
ready,  "No  doubt  tlie  hostess  will  make  us  one.  It  is 
best  fresh  made"!  And  so,  while  the  inipi-rial  mail  and 
all  the  Paris  and  Lomlon  letters  and  the  post  -  horses 
waileil  at  the  door,  the  coffee  wa^  made  and  leisurely 
discussed. 


240  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

I  will  upon  tins  occasion  also  spare  the  reader  all  guide- 
book chatter,  and  pass  on  to  the  arrival  of  myself  and 
the  friend  who  was  with  me  at  Dover,  which  arrival  was 
a  somewhat  remarkable  one. 

AVe  had  travelled  by  Antwerp,  which  I  wished  to  revisit 
for  the  sake  of  the  cathedral,  and  crossed  from  Osteud, 
where  also  I  was  not  sorry  to  pass  a  day. 

We  bad  a  long  and  nasty  passage,  but  at  last  reached 
Dover  to  find  the  whole  town  and  the  surrounding  hills 
under  snow,  and  to  be  met  by  the  intelligence  that  all 
communication  between  Dover  and  London  was  inter- 
rupted. Even  the  boat  which  used  to  ply  between  Do- 
ver and  the  London  Docks  would  not  face  the  abomina- 
ble weather,  and  was  not  running.  There  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  take  up  our  abode  at  the  King's  Head  (no 
Lord  Warden  in  those  days  !),  and  wait  for  the  road  to  be 
opened. 

We  waited  one  day,  two  days,  with  no  prospect  of  any 
amelioration  of  our  position.  On  the  third  day  two  young 
Americans  who  were  in  the  house,  equally  Aveather-bound 
with  ourselves,  and  equally  impatient  of  their  imprison- 
ment, assured  us  that  in  their  country  the  matter  would 
speedily  be  remedied,  and  declared  their  determination  of 
getting  to  Canterbury  on  a  sledge.  We  had  heard  by  that 
time  that  from  Canterbury  to  London  the  road  was  open. 
The  people  at  the  King's  Head  assured  us  that  no  such  at- 
tempt had  any  chance  of  succeeding.  But,  of  course,  our 
American  friends  considered  that  to  be  a  strictly  profes- 
sional opinion,  and  determined  on  starting.  We  agreed  to 
share  the  adventure  with  them.  Four  of  the  best  post- 
horses  we  could  find  in  Dover  w^ere  hired,  a  couple  of 
l)Ostboy8,  whose  pluck  was  stimulated  by  promises  of  high 
fees,  were  engaged,  and  a  sledge  was  rigged  under  the  per- 
sonal supervision  of  our  experienced  friends. 

On  the  fourth  day  we  got  ourselves  and  our  respective 
trunks  on  to  the  sledge,  and  started  among  the  ill-omened 
prognostications  of  our  host  of  the  King's  Head  and  his 
friends.  I  think  the  postboys  did  their  utmost  bravely, 
but  at  the  end  of  about  five  miles  from  Dover  they  dis- 
mounted from  their  floundering  horses  and  declared  the 


AT  BIRMINGUAM.  241 

enterprise  an  impossible  one.  It  was  totally  out  of  the 
question,  they  said,  to  reach  Canterbury.  It  Avould  be 
quite  as  much  as  they  could  do  to  get  back  to  Dover. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  The  boys  were  so  evidently 
right  that  the  Americans  did  not  attempt  to  gainsay  their 
decision.  A  council  of  war  was  called,  the  upshot  of 
which  was  that  our  two  American  allies  decided  to  return 
to  Dover  with  their  and  our  baggage  and  wraps,  while  my 
friend  and  I  determined  at  all  risks  to  push  on  to  Canter- 
bury on  foot.  AVe  had  eleven  miles  of  bleak  country  be- 
fore us,  which  was  simply  one  uniform  undulating  field 
of  snow.  The  baifled  postboys  gave  us  many  minute  di- 
rections of  signs  and  objects  by  which  we  were  to  endeavor 
to  keep  the  road.  We  had  started  from  Dover  about  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  It  was  then  not  quite  noon.  The 
mail  would  have  Canterbury  at  ten  at  night  for  London, 
and  we  had,  therefore,  ten  hours  before  us  for  our  under- 
taking. 

AVe  thought  that  four,  or,  at  the  outside,  five,  would  be 
ample  for  the  purpose,  if  Ave  Avere  ever  to  get  to  Canter- 
bury at  all.  But  Avc  did  not  reach  The  Fountain  in  that 
much-longed-for  city  till  past  eight  that  evening. 

It  Avas  a  terrible  Avalk.  Of  course  at  no  conceivable 
rate  of  progression  could  Ave  have  been  eight  hours  in 
walking  eleven  miles  if  Ave  had  continued  to  progress  at 
all.  But  we  lost  the  road  again  and  again;  sometimes  got 
far  away  from  it,  and  fought  our  Avay  back  to  it  by  the  di- 
rections obtained  at  farmhouses  or  laborers' cottages,  from 
])eopleAvho  evidently  deemed  our  enter[)rise  a  desperate  one. 
Mostly  Ave  Avere  struggling  knee-deep  in  snow,  once  or  twice 
l)lnn<rin<r  into  and  out  of  drifts  over  our  waists.  We  were 
not  on  foot  quite  all  the  time  ;  for  once  Ave  rested  in  a 
hospitable  cottage  for  an  liour,  when  avc  Avere  about  six 
miles  from  Canterbury.  Our  host  there,  avIio  Avas,  I  take 
it,  a  Avagoner,  strongly  advised  us  to  give  it  tip,  and  offered 
to  let  us  pass  the  night  in  his  euitage.  WC  were  .ilrcady 
very  much  beaten,  and  Avere  sorely  tempted  to  close  Avith 
his  jiroposal.  I'erhaps,  if  we  lia<l  known  that  Ave  shouM 
never,  as  Avas  the  case,  see  those  Americans  again,  Ave  should 
have  <lone  so.  But  much  as  our  liodies  needed  rest,  our 
11 


242  WHAT  I   KEMEMBER. 

souls  needed  trium])li  more.  So  we  turned  out  into  the 
enow  again,  and  —  by  eight  o'clock  did  reach  the  hospita- 
ble Fountain. 

But  we  were  in  a  sad  plight,  desperately  wearied,  a  good 
deal  bruised  and  knocked  about,  and  as  thoroughly  wet 
through  literally  as  though  we  had  been  Avalking  in  water 
instead  of  snow.  Rest  Avas  delicious  ;  a  hot  supper  was 
such  delight  as  no  "gods"  had  ever  enjoyed.  Good  beds 
would  have  been  Elysium.  But — the  thought  of  the 
next  morning  gave  us  pause.  We  had  no  rag  of  cloth- 
ing of  any  sort  save  the  thoroughly  soaked  things  on  our 
backs.  No  boots  or  shoes.  And  how  should  we  possibly 
put  on  again  those  on  our  feet  if  once  they  were  taken 
off  ?  In  London,  if  once  reached,  all  these  troubles  would 
be  at  an  end. 

linally  M'C  decided  to  go  on  by  the  mail  at  ten  that 
night.  But  here  a  fresh  disappointment  awaited  us. 
The  mail  was  booked  full  inside.  There  were  two  out- 
side places,  those  on  the  roof  behind  the  driver,  available. 
But  we  were  dead  beat,  wet  through  to  the  bone,  un- 
provided Avith  any  Avrap  of  any  kind,  and  it  AA'as  freezing 
hard. 

But  on  to  the  mail  Ave  climbed  at  ten  o'clock.  I  believe 
the  good  hostess  of  The  Fountain  genuinely  thought  our 
proceeding  suicidal,  and  the  refusal  of  her  beds  absolute- 
ly insane. 

That  journey  from  Canterbury  to  London  was  by  far 
the  worst  I  ever  made.  It  really  Avas  a  very  bad  business. 
But  at  every  change  of  horses  I  got  doAvn,  and,  holding  on 
by  the  coach  behind,  ran  as  far  as  my  breath  and  strength 
Avould  alloAV  me,  and  thus  knocked  a  little  Avarmth  into 
my  veins.  I  could  not  persuade  my  companion  to  do  like- 
Avise.  He  seemed  to  be  wearied  and  frozen  into  apathy. 
The  consequence  Avas  that  Avhereas  I  Avas  after  some 
twelve  hours  in  bed  not  a  jot  the  worse,  he  was  laid  up 
for  a  fortnight. 

Shortly  afterAvards  I  assumed  my  ncAV  duties  at  Bir- 
mingham. Tlic  new  building  had  been  completed,  and 
Avas — or,  rather,  is,  as  all  the  Avorld  may  see  to  the  present 
day — a  very  handsome  one.     The  head-master,  Avhose  as- 


AT  BIRMIXGUAM.  243 

sistant  I  specially  was,  was  Dr.  Jeunc,  who  became  subse- 
quently Bishop  of  Peterborough.  The  second  master,  Mr. 
Gedge,  had  also  an  assistant  named  Mason.  Our  duties 
were  to  teach  Latin  and  Greek  to  any  of  the  sons  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Birmingham  who  chose  to  avail  themselves 
of  King  Edward's  benevolent  foundation.  None  of  the 
masters  had  anything  to  do  with  the  business  of  lodging 
or  victualling  boys.  The  boys  were  all  day  boys,  and  our 
business  was  to  teach  them  Latin  and  Greek  during  certain 
hofirs  of  every  day.  ♦ 

I  soon  became  aware,  by  a  strangely  snl)tle  process  of 
feeling  rather  than  ob^iervation,  that  my  eight  years'  Win- 
chester experience  of  schoolboy  life  and  ways  had  not  con- 
stituted a  favorable  preparation  for  my  present  work.  I 
felt  that  I  was  workintj  in  an  atmosphere  and  on  a  material 
that  was  new  to  me.  It  would  be  absurd  to  imagine  that 
all  those  sons  of  Birmingham  tradesmen  were  stupider 
or  duller  boys  than  the  average  of  our  Winchester  lads. 
But  it  appeared  to  me  that  it  was  far  more  difficult  to 
teach  them  with  any  fair  amount  of  success.  They  were 
no  doubt  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  sons  of  men  Avho  had  never 
learned  anything  in  their  lives  save  the  elements  of  a 
strictly  commercial  education.  And  I  felt  myself  tempted 
to  believe  that  the  results  of  heredity  must  extend  them- 
selves even  to  the  greater  or  lesser  receptivity  of  one  de- 
scription of  teaching  instead  of  another.  I  suppose  that 
the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  shoemakers  would  be  more 
readily  taught  how  to  make  a  shoe  than  how  to  build  a 
ship.  And  it  may  be  in  like  manner  that  ingeiiuas  didi- 
risae  fidiUti  r  artes  comes  mure  readily  to  a  boy  whose 
forefathers  have  for  generations  done  the  same  thing  than 
it  would  to  the  descendant  of  generations  unmouldcd  by 
any  such  discipline. 

Corporal  jiunishment  was  used,  and  naturally  had  to  be 
resorted  to  much  more  fre<|ucntly  by  me  than  by  my  su- 
perior, whose  work  was  concerned  with  the  older  and  bet- 
ter-conducted j)ortion  of  the  boys.  Li  fact,  as  far  aa  my 
recollection  at  tl»e  present  day  goes,  it  seems  1«>  me  that 
hardly  any  morning  or  afternoon  passed  without  the  a]»pli- 
catii^n  of  the  can*-.      And  (his  curiMiral  <:is(iga(ii>n,  lliuiigh 


244  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

devoid  of  all  the  judicial  formality  wbich  might  have 
made  our  Winchester  "scourging"  a  really  moral  punish- 
ment if  the  frequency  of  it  and  the  prevailing  sentiment 
upon  the  subject  both  of  masters  and  scholars  had  been 
other  than  it  Avas,  was  in  truth  a  very  much  severer  inflic- 
tion as  regards  the  absolute  pain  to  be  suffered  by  the 
patient.  Three  or  four  strokes  with  the  cane  over  the 
palm  of  the  hand  would  be  very  much  worse  than  the 
perfunctory  swishing  with  the  peculiar  Winchester  rod. 
I  do  not  remember  that#.this  caning  was  ever  judicially 
used  as  a  sentence  to  be  executed  at  any  future  time,  or 
that  it  was  ever,  for  the  most  part,  used  to  punish  the  idle- 
ness which  had  prevented  a  boy  from  learning  his  lessons 
at  his  home.  It  was  used  almost  exclusively,  as  far  as  I 
remember,  for  the  preservation  of  order  and  silence  dur- 
ing the  school  hours,  and  the  correction  of  the  offender 
followed  instantly  on  the  commission  of  the  offence. 

And  this  necessity  of  enforcing  order  among  a  very  un- 
disciplined crew  of  some  forty  or  fift)^  lads,  of  ages  vary- 
ing from,  perhajos,  twelve  to  about  fourteen  or  fifteen,  was 
by  far  the  most  irksome  and  diflicult  part  of  my  duty.  I 
was  accustomed  to  tuition.  But  the  cumulation  of  the 
office  of  beadle  with  that  of  teacher  was  new  to  me,  and  I 
did  not  like  it.  And  still  less  did  I  like  the  constant  ten- 
dency of  the  urgent  duties  of  the  first  office  to  encroach 
upon  those  of  the  second. 

My  scholastic  experiences  had  accustomed  me  to  a  state 
of  things  in  Avhich  idleness,  violence,  dare-devil  audacity, 
and  neglect  of  duty  had  been  common  enough,  but  in 
which  organized  trickery  and  deception  had  been  rarely 
seen.  And  I  felt  myself  unfitted  for  the  duties  of  a  police- 
man among  these  turbulent  Birmintrham  lads.  I  never 
saw  the  face  of  any  one  of  them  save  during  school  hours  ; 
and  I  remember  thinking  at  the  time  that,  had  this  been 
otherwise,  I  might  have  obtained  a  moral  influence  over  at 
least  some  of  them,  which  might  have  been  more  useful 
than  all  my  efforts  during  school  hours  to  force  the  rules 
and  principles  of  syntax  into  unwilling  brains,  accustomed 
to  the  habitual  defiance  of  them  during  all  the  remainder 
of  their  lives. 


AT   BIRMINGUAM.  245 

It  appeared  to  me  that  I  was  engaged  in  the  perpetual, 
and  somewhat  hopeless,  task  of  endeavoring  to  manufac- 
ture silk  purses  out  of  sows'  ears  ;  and  I  confess  that  I 
never  put  on  my  academical  gown  to  go  into  school  with- 
out feeling  that  I  was  going  to  an  irksome,  and,  I  feared, 
unprofitable  labor.  I  tried  hard  to  do  my  duty  ;  but  I 
fear  that  I  was  by  no  means  the  right  man  in  the  riglit 
place. 

No  preparation  of  any  kind,  beyond  assuming  my  gown 
and  trencher  cap,  before  going  into  school  was  needed, 
and  I  had,  therefore,  abundance  of  leisure,  during  which 
I  did  a  considerable  quantity  of  miscellaneous  reading, 
not,  perhaps,  altogether  so  unprofitable  as  the  advocates 
of  regular  study  devoted  to  some  well-defined  end  might 
suppose. 

We  endeavored — my  colleague  Mason  and  I — I  remem- 
ber, to  get  uj)  a  debating  society  among  the  few — very 
few — young  men  with  whom  v/e  had  become  acquainted. 
But  it  did  not  succeed.  Young  Birmingham,  intent  on 
making,  and  on  its  way  to  make,  "  jjlums  "  in  hardware, 
did  not  think  that  "debating"  was  the  best  way  of  em- 
ploying the  hours  that  could  be  spared  from  the  counting- 
house. 

There  might,  no  doubt,  have  been  found  a  better  ele- 
ment of  social  intercourse  in  the  younger  clergy  of  the 
town;  but  they  were  all  strongly  "evangelical,"  which 
was  at  that  time  quite  sufficient  to  entail  an  oil-and-vine- 
gar  mutual  repulsion  between  them  and  the  young  Wyke- 
hamist. Ami  this,  involving  as  it  does  a  confession  of  a 
discreditable  amount  of  raw  young-man's  prejudice,  I  men- 
tion as  an  illustration  of  the  current  opinions,  feelings,  and 
mental  habits  of  the  time,  for,  after  all,  I  was  not  mori' 
prejudiced  and  more  stiqiid  than  the  rest  of  the  world 
around  me. 

In  fact  my  life  at  Birmingham  was  for  tiie  most  part  :: 
very  solitary  one.  I  used  to  come  liomo  tired  and  worn 
out  to  my  lodgings  with  Mrs.  Clements  in  New  Hall 
Street;  and  the  prospect  of  a  lonely  eveuing  with  my 
bof>k,  my  teapot,  and  my  pipe  was  not  unwelcome  to  me, 
for  it  was,  at  least,  repose  and  (piiet  after  noise  and  tur- 


246  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

moil.  Every  now  and  then  I  nscd  to  dine  and  pass  the 
evening  with  Dr.  Jeune ;  and  these  were  my  red-letter 
days.  Jeune  had  married  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Symonds, 
the  warden  of  Wadhara.  She  was  a  tall  and  very  hand- 
some woman,  as  well  as  an  extremely  agreeable  one.  At 
first,  I  remember,  I  used  to  think  that  if  she  had  been  the 
daughter  of  anybody  else  than  the  "  Head  of  a  House," 
one  just  emerging  from  statu  pupillari  might  have  found 
her  more  charming.  But  this  soon  wore  off  as  we  got  to 
know  each  other  better.  And  long  talks  with  Mrs.  Jeune 
are  the  plcasantest — indeed,  I  think  I  may  say  the  only 
pleasant — recollections  of  my  life  at  Birmingham. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    PARTING    OF   THE    WAYS. 

I  HELD  my  mastership  in  King  Edward's  School  at  Bir- 
mingham a  year  and  a  half — from  shortly  after  the  first 
day  of  1837  to  the  19th  of  June,  1838. 

At  the  end  of  that  time  I  went  back  to  my  mother's 
liouse  at  Iladley.  She  had  in  the  meantime  returned  from 
Vienna,  liad  completed  her  two  volumes  on  that  journey, 
and  published  them  with  such  a  measure  of  success  as  to 
encourage  her  in  hoping  that  she  might  vary  her  never- 
ceasing  labor  in  the  production  of  novels  by  again  under- 
taking other  journeys.  But  for  this,  and  still  more  for 
the  execution  of  other  schemes,  of  which  I  shall  liave  to 
speak  further  on,  my  presence  and  companionship  were 
necessary  to  her.  And  after  much  consultation  and  very 
many  walks  together  round  the  little  quiet  garden  at 
Iladley,  it  was  decided  l)etween  us  that  I  should  send  in 
my  resignation  of  the  Birmingham  mastership,  defer  all 
alternative  steps  in  the  direction  of  an}'-  other  life  career, 
and  devote  myself,  for  the  present  at  least,  to  becoming 
her  companion  and  squire. 

The  decision  was  a  verv  momentous  one.  As  miffht 
have  been  anticij^ated,  the  "  deferring  "  of  any  steps  in  the 
direction  of  a  jirofessional  career  of  any  sort  turned  out 
eventually  to  \)v  tlie  final  abandonment  of  any  such.  It 
could  hardly  be  otlierwise  in  the  case  of  a  young  man  of 
tweiity-eiglit,  which  was  my  age  at  the  time.  I  was  tlie 
Ron  of  a  fatlier  wlio  had  left  absohitely  nothing  behind 
liim,  and  I  liail  no  prospect  whatever  of  any  independent 
means  from  any  other  source.  It  is  true  tliat  ])roperty 
settled  on  my  mother  before  lier  marriage  would  in  any 
case  suffice  to  keep  me  from  absobite  destitution,  liut  that 
was  about  all  that  could  l)e  snid  of  it.  And  eertainlv  the 
decision  to   which  my  mother  ami  I  came  during  these 


248  WHAT   I  IlEMEMHER. 

walks  round  and  round  the  Iladloj^  garden  was  audacious 
rather  than  jjrudent. 

I  have  never  regretted  it  during  anj'  jxart  of  the  now 
well-nigli  half  a  century  of  life  that  has  elapsed  since  the 
resolution  was  taken.  I  have  been,  I  have  not  the  smallest 
doubt,  a  nuich  happier  man  than  I  should  have  been  had 
I  followed  a  more  beaten  track.  My  brother  Anthony 
used  to  say  of  me  that  I  should  never  have  earned  my  salt 
in  the  routine  work  of  a  profession,  or  any  employment 
under  the  authoritative  supervision  of  a  superior.  I  al- 
ways dissented,  and  beg  still  to  record  my  dissent,  from 
any  such  judgment.  But,  as  it  is,  I  can  say  with  sincerely 
grateful  recognition  in  my  heart,  that  I  have  been  a  very 
happy — I  fear  I  may  say  an  exceptionally  happ}^ — man. 
Despite  this,  I  do  not  think  that  were  I  called  upon  to 
advise  a  young  man  in  precisely  similar  circumstances  to 
mine  at  that  time,  I  should  counsel  him  to  follow  mv  ex- 
ample;  for  I  have  been  not  only  a  happy,  but  a  singularly 
fortunate  man.  Again  and  again,  at  various  turning-points 
of  my  life,  I  have  been  fortunate  to  a  degree  which  no  con- 
duct or  prudence  of  my  own  merited. 

I  Avas  under  no  immediate  obligation  to  work  in  any 
way,  but  I  cannot  say  of  myself  I  have  been  an  idle  man. 
I  have  worked  much,  and  sometimes  very  hard. 

Upon  one  occasion — the  occasion  was  that  of  sudden 
medical  advice  to  the  effect  that  it  w\as  desirable  that  I 
should  take  my  first  wife  from  Florence  for  a  change  of 
climate,  which  I  Avas  not  in  funds  to  do  comfortably — I 
planned  and  wrote,  from  title-page  to  colophon,  and  sold 
a  two-volume  novel  of  the  usual  size  in  four-and-twenty 
days,  I  had  a  "  turn  of  speed"  in  writing  as  -well  as  walk- 
ing. I  could  do  my  five  miles  and  three  quarters  in  an 
hour  at  a  fair  toe-and-heel  walk,  and  I  wrote  a  novel  in 
twenty-four  days — it  was  written  indeed  in  twenty-three, 
for  I  took  a  whole  holiday  in  the  middle  of  the  work.  Of 
course  it  may  be  said  that  the  novel  was  trash.  But  it 
was  as  good  as,  and  was  found  by  the  publisher  to  be 
more  satisfactory  than,  some  others  of  the  great  number 
I  have  perpetrated.  And  I  should  like  those  who  may 
imagine  that  the  arduous  nature  of  the  feat  I  accomplished 


THE   PARTING   OF   THE   WAYS.  249 

was  made  less  by  the  literary  imperfection  of  the  work  to 
try  the  experiment  of  copying  six  hundred  post-octavo 
pages  in  the  time.  I  found  the  register  of  each  day's  work 
the  otlier  day.  The  longest  Avas  thirty-three  pages.  It 
was  no  great  matter  to  have  written  threc-and-thirty  pages 
in  one  day,  hut  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  few  men  (or 
even  women)  could  continue  for  as  many  days  at  so  higli 
an  average  of  speed.  My  brother  used  to  say  that  he 
could  not  do  the  like  to  save  his  life  and  that  of  all  those 
dearest  to  him.  And  he  Avas  not  a  slow  Avriter.  Of 
course  when  my  book  was  done  I  was  nearly  done  too. 
But  I  do  not  know  that  I  was  ever  any  the  worse  for  the 
effort.  The  novel  in  question  was  called  "  Beppo  the 
Conscript." 

No,  I  have  not  been  an  idle  man  since  the  day  Avhen  my 
mother  and  myself  decided  that  I  was  to  follow  no  recog- 
nized profession.  The  long,  too  long,  series  of  Avorks  which 
have  been  published  as  mine  Avill  account  for  probably 
considerably  less  than  half  the  printed  matter  which  I  ana 
responsible  for  having  given  to  the  Avorld.  Xor  can  I  say 
that  I  Avas  driven  to  work  "  by  hunger  and  request  of 
friends."  During  all  ray  long  career  of  authorship  there 
was  no  period  at  which  I  could  not  have  lived  an  idle  man 
— not  so  Avell  as  I  Avished,  certainly;  but  I  Avas  not  driven 
by  imjierious  necessity. 

Yet  I  have  a  very  pretty  turn  for  idleness  too.  It  is  as 
pleasant  to  me  "  to  smoke  my  canister  and  tipple  my  ale 
in  tlic  shade,"  as  Thackeray  says,  as  to  any  man.  An- 
tliony  ^ad  no  such  turn.  Work  to  him  Avas  a  necessity 
and  a  satisfaction.  He  used  often  to  say  that  he  envied 
me  the  capacity  for  being  idle.  Had  he  possessed  it,  poor 
fellow,  I  might  not  now  be  speaking  of  him  in  the  past 
tense.  And  still  less  than  of  me  cf)ul<l  it  be  said  of  him 
that  he  Avas  eviT  driven  to  litorary  work  ih^h-lcutt'  crn- 
merid.  But  he  labored,  during  thu  whole  of  his  manhood 
life,  with  an  insatiable  ardor  thai  (taking  into  considera- 
tion his  very  etVu-icnt  discharge  of  his  duties  as  post-oilicc 
surveyor)  ])Uts  my  industry  into  the  shade. 

Certainly  we  both  of  us  ought  to  have  inherited,  and  I 
supj)ose  <lid  inhcrif,  an  apfitndr  for  industry.  ^ly  father 
11* 


250  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

was,  as  I  have  said,  a  i-emarkably  laborious,  though  an  un- 
successful, man,  and  ray  mother  left  a  hundred  and  fifteen 
volumes,  written  between  her  fiftieth  year  and  that  of  her 
death. 

Shortly  after  my  final  return  from  Birmingham  my 
mother  had  a  bad  illness.  It  could  not  have  been  a  very 
long  one  ;  the  record  of  her  published  work  shows  no  ces- 
sation of  literary  activity.  Whether  this  illness  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  resolution  she  came  to  much  about 
the  same  time  to  change  her  residence,  I  do  not  remem- 
ber, but  about  this  time  we  established  ourselves  at  No.  20 
York  Street. 

Here,  as  everywhere  else  where  my  mother  found  or 
made  a  home,  the  house  forthwith  became  the  resort  of 
pleasant  people ;  and  my  time  in  York  Street  was  a  very 
agreeable  one.  Among  other  frequenters  of  it,  my  diary 
makes  frequent  mention  of  Judge  Ilaliburton,  of  Nova 
Scotia,  better  known  to  the  world  as  Sara  Slick,  the  Clock- 
maker.  He  was,  as  I  remember  hira,  a  delightful  compan- 
ion— for  a  limited  time.  He  was  in  this  respect  exactly 
like  his  books — extremely  amusing  reading  if  taken  in 
rather  small  doses,  but  calculated  to  seem  tiresomely  mo- 
notonous if  indulged  in  at  too  great  length.  He  was  a 
thoroughly  good  fellow,  kindly,  cheery,  hearty,  and  sym- 
pathetic always;  and  so  far  always  a  welcome  companion. 
But  his  funning  was  always  ])itched  in  the  same  key,  and 
always  more  or  less  directed  to  the  same  objects.  His 
social  and  political  ideas  and  views  all  coincided  with  my 
own,  which,  of  course,  tended  to  make  us  better  f^j-iends. 
In  appearance  he  looked  entirely  like  an  Englishman,  but 
not  at  all  like  a  Londoner.  Without  l)eing  at  all  too  fat, 
he  was  large  and  burly  in  person,  with  gray  hair,  a  large 
ruddy  face,  a  humorous  mouth,  and  bright  blue  eyes  al- 
ways full  of  mirth.  He  was  an  inveterate  chewer  of  to- 
bacco, and,  in  the  fulness  of  comrade-like  kindness,  strove 
to  indoctrinate  me  with  that  habit.  But  I  was  already  an 
old  smoker,  and  preferred  to  content  myself  with  that 
mode  of  availing  myself  of  the  blessing  of  tobacco. 

"  Highways  and  Bye  ways"  Grattan  we  also  saw  occa- 
sionally when  anything  brought  hira  to  London.     He  also 


THE   PARTLNG   OF   THE  WAYS.  251 

was,  as  will  readily  be  believed,  what  is  generally  called 
very  good  comj^any.  He,  too,  was  full  of  fun,  and  cer- 
tainly it  could  not  be  said  that  his  fiddle  bad  but  one  string 
to  it.  His  fault  lay  in  the  opposite  direction.  His  fun- 
ning muse  "made  increment  of"  everything.  He  was  in- 
tensely Irish,  in  manner,  accent,  and  mind.  He  had  a  bro- 
ken, or  naturally  bridgeless,  nose,  and  possessed  as  small  a 
share  of  good  looks  or  personal  advantages  as  most  men. 
He  first  urged  me  to  try  my  hand  at  a  novel.  He  had 
seen  some  of  my  early  scribblings,  but  repeated  that  "  Fic- 
tion, me  boy,  fiction  and  passion  are  what  readers  want." 
But  I  did  not  at  that  time,  or  for  many  a  long  year  after- 
wards, feel  within  myself  any  capacity  for  supplying  such 
want. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

MESMERIC    EXPEKIENCES. 

Ox  the  17th  of  August,  in  1838,  as  I  find  by  my  diary, 
"I  went  with  Henrietta  Skcrret  to  see  the  Baron  Dupotet 
magnetize  his  patients."  Tliis  was  my  first  introduction 
to  a  subject,  and  to  a  special  little  world  of  its  own,  of 
which  subsequently  I  saw  a  great  deal,  and  which  shortly 
began  to  attract  an  increasing  amount  of  attention  from 
the  greater  world  around  it.  The  Miss  Skerret  mentioned 
was  the  younger  of  two  sisters,  the  nieces  of  Mathias,  the 
author  of  the  once  well-known,  but  now  forgotten,  "Pur- 
suits of  Literature."  Mr.  Mathias  and  his  sister,  Mrs.  Sker- 
ret, had  been  old  acquaintances  of  my  mother  ivova.  earlier 
days  than  those  to  which  any  reminiscences  of  mine  run 
back.  And  ]\Iarvanne  and  Henrietta  Skerret  were  lifelong 
friends  of  my  mother's  and  of  mine.  They  were  left  at  the 
death  of  their  parents  very  slenderly  provided  for,  and 
Marj'anne,  the  elder,  became  by  the  interest  of  some  influ- 
ential person  among  their  numerous  friends,  received  into 
the  service  of  the  queen  in  some  properly  menial  capacity. 
But  of  all  those  in  the  immediate  service  of  her  majesty, 
it  is  probable  that  there  was  not  one,  whether  menial  or 
other,  equal  to  Miss  Skerret  in  native  power  of  intellect, 
extent  of  reading,  and  linguistic  accomplishment.  And 
this  the  queen  very  speedily  discovered,  the  result  of 
which  was  that  to  her  ])articular  service,  Avhich  I  believe 
consisted  in  taking  charge  of  the  jewelry  which  the  queen 
liad  in  daily  use,  was  added  that  of  marking  in  the  volumes 
which  her  majesty  wished  to  make  some  ac(iuaintance 
with  those  passages  Avhich  she  deemed  worth  the  (pi ecu's 
attention.  She  remained  with  the  queen  many  years,  till 
advancing  age  was  thought  to  have  entitled  her  to  a  retir- 
ing pension,  which  she  was  still  enjoying  when  I  saw  her, 
a  very  old  woman,  two  or  three  years  ago.     I  know  that  she 


MESMERIC  EXPERIENCES.  253 

found  her  position  in  the  household,  as  may  be  readily- 
understood,  an  irksome  and  materially  uncomfortable  one. 
But  of  her  royal  mistress,  and  of  every  member  of  the 
royal  family  she  came  into  contact  with,  she  never  ceased 
to  speak  with  the  utmost  affection  and  gratitude. 

The  younger  sister,  Henrietta,  died  some  years  before  her. 
I  had  of  late  years  seen  much  more  of  her  than  of  her  sister  ; 
for  of  course  the  position  of  the  latter  cut  her  off  very 
much  from  all  association  with  her  friends.  Henrietta 
was  as  remarkably  clever  a  woman  as  her  sister,  but  very 
different  from  her.  She  Avas  as  good  a  linguist,  but  her 
natural  bent  was  to  mathematics  and  its  kindred  subjects 
rather  than  to  general  literature.  And  whereas  Maryannc 
was  marked  by  an  exquisite  sense  of  humor,  and  was  al- 
ways full  of  fun,  Henrietta  Avas,  I  think,  the  most  judicial- 
minded  woman  I  have  ever  known.  I  have  never  met  the 
man  or  woman  Avhom  I  should  have  preferred  to  consult  on 
a  matter  of  Avcighing  and  estimating  the  value  of  evidence. 
She  AA'as  for  many  years,  as  was  my  mother  also,  an  inti- 
mate friend  of  Captain  Kater,  avIio  was  in  those  days  Avell 
known  in  the  scientific  Avorld  as  "Pendulum  Kater,"  from 
some  application,  I  fancy,  of  the  properties  of  the  pendulum 
to  the  business  of  ma])ping,  in  Avhich  he  had  been  engaged 
in  India.  Young,  "NYoolaston,  De  ]\[orgau,  and  others  ej/(s- 
dcra  farinre,  were  all  ]Miss  Skerret's  friends,  especially  the 
last  named.  And  I  Avas  brought  into  contact  with  some 
of  them  by  her  means. 

This  was  the  lady  Avho,  in  1838,  invited  me  to  accomi»any 
her  fo  a  .teimre  at  the  house  of  l>aron  Diipotet,  a  French- 
man, whose  magnetizing  theories  and  practice  Avere  at 
that  time  exciting  some  attention. 

Here  is  an  extract  from  my  diary  Avritten  the  same 
evening : 

"The  phenomena  I  have  Avitnessed  are  cerlainly  most 
extraordinary  and  unaccountable.  That  one  young  woman 
was  thrown  info  a  convulsive  state  is  entirely  undeniable. 
Her  muscles,  which  \vc  felt,  Avere  hard,  rigid,  and  in  a  state 
of  tension,  and  so  remaitu'd  for  a  longer  lime  ili:iii  it  is 
possible  for  any  person  vohmtarily  to  keep  tlu-m  so — for, 
I  should  say,  at  least  Iwcnfy  minutes.      A   little  girl  be- 


254  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

came  to  all  appearance  somnambulous.  This,  however, 
might  more  possibly  be  imposture.  When  the  little  girl 
and  the  young  Avoman  were  placed  near  each  other,  the 
effect  on  both  was  increased,  and  the  girl  instead  of  being 
merely  somnambulous,  became  convulsive.  The  little 
girl,  as  far  as  the  close  observation  of  the  onlookers 
could  detect  [underlining  in  original],  saw  the  colors  of 
objects,  etc.,  with  her  eyes  closed.  This,  however,  is  evi- 
dence of  a  nature  easily  deceptive.  When  waked  from 
her  magnetic  trance,  she  forgot,  or  professed  to  have  foi-- 
gotten,  all  that  she  had  said  or  done  M'hen  in  it.  But 
when  again  put  into  a  state  of  trance  or  somnambulism, 
she  again  remembered  and  spoke  of  what  had  occurred  in 
the  former  trance. 

"  After  these  patients  were  disposed  of,  two  young  men 
of  the  spectators  offered  themselves  as  subjects  to  the 
magnetizer.  He  said  that  they  were  not  good  subjects 
for  it,  and  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  affect  them,  and 
would  take  a  long  time.  He  then  tried  me,  and  after  a 
short  space  of  time,  I  think  not  more  than  half  a  minute, 
he  said  that  I  was  very  sensitive  to  the  magnetic  influence, 
and  that  in  two  or  three  sittings  he  could  produce  ^  des 
effets  extraordinaires''  on  me  ;  but  that  he  was  then  tired, 
and  that  ^ rien  ne  coide  jflus''  from  his  fingers." 

It  is  not  so  stated  in  my  diar}^,  but  I  remember  perfect- 
ly well  that  the  general  impression  left  on  my  mind  l)y  the 
baron  was  not  a  favorable  one.  I  find  by  my  diary  that 
I  read  his  book,  translated  from  the  French  by  Miss  Sker- 
ret,  a  few  days  afterwards,  and  the  result  was  to  increase 
the  above  impression.  But  I  was  far  from  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  his  pretensions  were  all  chimorical.  As 
regards  his  dictum  about  my  own  impressionability,  I  may 
observe  that  on  various  occasions  at  long- distant  times 
I  have  been  subjected  to  the  experiments  of  several  pro- 
fessing magnetizers  of  reputed  first-rate  power,  but  that 
never  has  the  slightest  effect  of  any  kind  whatever  been 
produced  upon  me.  Sometimes  I  was  pronounced  to  be 
physically  a  bad  subject ;  sometimes  I  was  accused  of  spoil- 
ing the  experiment  by  wilfully  resisting  the  influence  ; 
sometimes  the  magnetizer  was  too  tired. 


MESMERIC   EXPERIENCES.  255 

I  think  I  may  as  well  tlirow  together  here  the  rest  of  my 
experiences  and  reminiscences  iu  connection  with  this  sub- 
ject— or  rather  some  selections  from  them,  for  I  have  at 
different  times  and  places  seen  so  much  of  it  that  I  might 
fill  volumes  with  the  reports  of  my  observations. 

On  the  13th  of  February,  1839,  my  mother  and  I  dined 
with  Mr.  Grattan  to  meet  Dr.  Elliotson,  and  on  the  follow- 
ing day  we  went  by  appointment  to  meet  him  at  the  house 
of  a  patient  of  his,  a  little  boy  in  Red  Lion  Sti'eet.  I  saw 
subsequently  a  great  deal  of  Dr.  Elliotson,  and  I  may  say 
became  intimate  Avith  him.  It  needed  but  little  inter- 
course with  him  to  perceive  that  here  was  a  man  of  a  very 
different  calibre  from  Baron  Dupotet.  "Without  at  all 
coming  to  the  conclusion  that  the  latter  was  a  charlatan,  it 
was  abundantly  evident  to  me  that  Elliotson  was  in  no  de- 
gree such.  He  was  a  gentleman,  a  highly  educated  and 
accomplished  man,  and  so  genuinely  in  earnest  on  this  sub- 
ject of  "  animal  magnetism,"  as  it  was  the  fashion  then  to 
call  it,  that  he  was  ready  to  spend  and  be  spent  in  his 
efforts  to  establish  the  truthfulness  and  therapeutic  useful- 
ness of  its  pretensions. 

Here  is  the  account  of  what  we — my  mother  and  I — 
witnessed  on  that  14th  of  February,  as  given  in  my  diary 
written  the  same  day  : 

"lie  put  the  little  boy  to  sleep  very  shortly,  then  drew 
liim  by  magnetic  passes  out  of  his  chair,  and  caused  him, 
while  evidently  all  the  time  asleep,  to  imitate  him  [Dr. 
P^lliotson]  ill  all  his  attitudes  and  movements.  We  both 
firmly  believed  that  tlu;  boy  icfs  asleep.  Wo  then  went 
to  the  house  of  another  patient,  Emma  ]Melhuish,  the 
daughter  of  a  glazier,  sixteen  years  old,  and  ill  in  bed  from 
cataleptic  fits." 

This  was  a  very  remarkable  rase,  and  had  attracted  con- 
siderable attention.  Emma  Mrlhuish  was  a  very  beauti- 
ful girl,  and  she  was  perhaj»s  the  most  remarkable  instance 
I  ever  witnessed  of  a  singular  phenomenon  resulting  from 
magnetic  sleep,  which  has  been  often  spoken  of  in  relation 
to  other  cases — the  truly  woiulerful  spiritual  beauty  as- 
sumed by  the  fcatun-s  and  ex]»ression  of  the  patient  dur- 
ing superinduced  cataleptic  trance,  which  lias  lu-ver,  I  be- 


256  WUAT  I  REMEMBER. 

lieve,  been  observed  in  cases  of  natural  catalepsy.  I  have 
seen  this  girl,  Emma  ^Melhuish  (doubtless  a  very  pretty 
girl  in  her  normal  state  of  health,  but  with  nothing  intel- 
lectually or  morall}'  special  about  her),  throw  herself  during 
her  magnetic  trance  into  attitudes  of  adoration,  the  grace 
and  expressiveness  of  which  no  painter  could  hope  to  find 
in  the  best  model  he  ever  saw  or  heard  of,  while  her  face 
and  features,  eyes  especially,  assumed  a  rapt  and  ecstatic  ex- 
pressiveness which  no  Saint  Theresa  could  have  equalled. 
It  was  a  conception  of  Fra  Angelico  spiritualized  by  the 
presence  of  the  breath  of  life.  Never  shall  I  forget  the 
look  of  the  girl  as  I  saw  her  in  that  condition !  I  can  see 
her  now  !  and  can  remember,  as  I  felt  it  then,  the  painf ul- 
ness  of  the  suggestion  that  such  an  apparent  outlook  of  the 
soul  was  in  truth  nothing  more  than  the  result  of  certain 
purely  material  conditions  of  the  body.     But  was  it  such  ? 

Here  is  my  diarj^'s  account  of  what  I  saw  that  first  day: 

"  We  found  her  in  mesmeric  sleep,  she  having  been  so 
since  left  by  Dr.  Elliotson  in  that  condition  the  day  be- 
fore. We  heard  her  predict  the  time  when  her  fits  would 
recur,  and  saw  the  prediction  verified  with  the  utmost  ex- 
actitude. We  heard  her  declare  m  what  part  of  the  house 
her  various  sisters  were  at  the  moment,  saying  that  one 
had  just  left  the  counting-house  and  had  come  into  the 
next  room,  all  which  statements  we  carefully  verified. 
My  mother  and  myself  came  home  fully  persuaded  that, 
let  the  explanatory  theory  of  the  matter  be  what  it  might, 
there  had  been  no  taint  of  imposture  in  what  we  had  wit- 
nessed." 

On  subsequent  visits  we  assured  ourselves  of  the  entire 
truthfulness  of  statements  to  the  effect  that  Emma  was 
conscious  of  the  approach  of  Dr.  Elliotson,  while  he  was 
still  in  a  different  street,  and  to  the  punctuality  with  which 
she  went  to  sleep  and  waked,  at  the  hour  she  had  named 
herself  as  that  when  she  should  do  so. 

I  remember  Dr.  Elliotson  relating  to  me,  as  an  instance 
of  the  utility  of  the  magnetic  infiuence,  a  curious  case  to 
which  he  had  been  called.  The  brother  of  a  young  girl 
had,  as  a  practical  joke,  suddenly  fired  off  a  pistol  behind 
her  head.     She  was  of  course  painfully  startled,  with  the 


MESMERIC   EXPERIENCES.  257 

result  of  becoming  affected  by  a  fit  of  hiecough  so  per- 
sistent that  no  means  could  be  found  or  suggested  of 
making  it  cease.  It  was  absolutely  impossible  for  the 
irirl  to  swallow  anvthincj.  She  was  becoming  exhausted, 
and  the  case  assumed  a  really  alarming  aspect.  It  was 
at  this  conjuncture  that  Elliotson  was  called  in.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  putting  her  into  a  magnetic  sleep,  with  of  course 
perfect  calm,  after  which  the  hiccough  returned  no  more. 

But  by  far  the  most  curious  and  interesting  of  Elliot- 
son's  cases  was  one  of  which  a  good  deal  was,  I  think, 
said  and  printed  in  those  days,  but  of  which  very  few  per- 
sons, pi'obably,  saw  as  much  as  I  did — the  case  of  the  two 
Okey  girls.  They  were  both  patients,  I  believe,  for  some 
form  of  catalepsy,  in  a  hospital  of  which  Dr.  Elliotson 
was  one  of  the  leading  physicians.  Dr.  Elliotson  was 
obliged  to  throw  up  his  position  there,  because  those  who 
were  in  authority  at  the  hospital  were  bitterly  opposed  to 
his  magnetizing  experiments  and  practice.  And  about  the 
same  time,  or  shortly  afterwards,  the  Okey  girls  were  dis- 
missed for  a  cause  v.hich  seems  grotesquely  absurd,  but 
the  story  of  which  is  strictly  true.  These  girls,  of,  I  sup- 
pose, about  thirteen  and  fourteen,  being  in  the  very  ex- 
traordinary condition  which  a  prolonged  course  of  mag- 
netizing had  ])roduced  (of  which  I  shall  speak  further 
presently),  were  in  the  habit  of  declaring  that  they  "saw 
Jack"  at  the  bedside  of  this  or  that  patient  in  the  hospi- 
tal. And  the  patients  of  whom  they  made  this  assertion 
invariably  died  !  That  the  ])resencc  of  such  i)rophetesses 
in  the  hospital  was  un<lesirable  is  intelligibk-  enough  ;  but 
what  are  we  to  think  of  the  motives,  presentinunts,  in- 
stincts, intuitions  of  mental  or  i)h3'sical  nature  which 
promj)tcd  such  guesses  or  prophecies? 

Much  about  the  same  time  my  bruther  had  a  serious  and 
dangerous  illness,  so  much  so  tiiat  his  medical  attendants 
— of  wliom  Dr.  Elliotson  was,  I  know  not  wliy,  not  one, 
though  we  were  intimate  with  him  at  tlic  time — were  by 
no  means  assureil  respecting  the  issue  of  il.  Now  it  is 
within  my  own  knowledge  that  the  Okey  girls,  espi-cially 
one  of  them  (Jane,  I  think  Jii-r  name  was),  were  very  fre- 
(luently  in  the  lo(lL'•iIl'^s  occupied  by  my  ])rolher  at  the 


258  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

time,  during  the  period  of  his  greatest  danger,  and  used 
constantly  to  say  that  they  "saw  Jack  by  his  side,  but 
only  up  to  his  knee,"  and  therefore  they  thought  he  would 
recover — as  he  did  !  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  write  what 
seems  such  childish  absurdity.  But  the  facts  arc  certain, 
and  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  cause  of  the  girls'  dis- 
missal from  the  hospital,  and  with  a  statement  made  to 
me  subsequently  by  Dr.  Elliotson,  they  are  very  curious. 
I  may  add  that  when  cross-examined  as  closely  as  was 
possible  as  to  what  they  saw,  the  girls  said  they  did  not 
know — that  they  did  know  that  certain  persons  whom 
they  saw  were  about  to  die  shortly,  and  that  was  their 
way  of  saying  it.  They,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  on 
reaching  our  house  by  omnibus,  said  that  they  had  seen 
"Jack"  by  the  side  of  one  of  the  passengers — of  course  I 
cannot  say  with  what  issue. 

The  statement  referred  to  was  as  follows  :  Elliotson 
having  been  in  some  sort  the  cause  of  the  two  girls  being 
turned  out  of  the  hospital,  and  being  anxious,  moreover, 
to  continue  his  observations  on  them,  took  them  into  his 
own  house.  There,  looking  out  one  day  from  an  upper 
window,  they  saw  across  the  street  at  the  opposite  window 
three  fine  healthy-looking  children.  They  were,  said  El- 
liotson, the  children  of  a  hairdresser,  who  had  a  shop  be- 
low. "  What  a  pity,"  said  Jane  Okey,  "  that  that  child  in 
the  middle  has  Jack  at  him.  lie  will  die  !"  And  so  with- 
in a  day  or  two — it  might  have  been  hours,  I  am  not  cer- 
tain— the  child  did  die  !  Believing,  as  I  do.  Dr.  Elliotson 
to  have  been  a  truthful  and  habitually  accurate  speaker,  I 
confess  that  it  does  not  satisfy  me  to  dismiss  this  story, 
especially  when  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  other  anec- 
dotes I  have  related,  as  mere  "  coincidence,"  though  I  have 
no  shadow  of  a  theory  to  offer  in  explanation  of  it. 

The  purely  physical  experiments  which  were  performed 
with  these  girls  before  my  eyes  were  curious  and  interest- 
ing. I  have  seen  those  Okey  girls,  and  they  Avere  slight, 
small  girls,  lift  weights  which  it  Avould  be  quite  impossi- 
ble for  them  to  lift  normally,  not  by  applying  the  whole 
strength  of  the  body  and  back  to  the  task,  but  by  taking 
tlic  ring  of  an  iron  weight  in  the  hand,  and  so  lifting  it  in 


MESMERIC  EXPERIEXCES.  259 

obedience  to  the  "passes"  of  the  magnetizer  applied  to 
the  arm. 

But  decidedly  the  most  singular  and  curious  part  of  the 
case  consisted  in  the  abnormal  condition  of  mind  and  in- 
telligence in  which  they  lived  under  magnetic  influence 
for  many  Avceks  at  a  time.     There  were  three  conditions, 
or,  as  it  might  be  said,  three  stages  of  condition  in  which 
I  saw  and  studied  them.    Firstly — though  it  was  lastly  as 
regards  my  opportunities  of  observation — there  was  their 
normal  natural  condition.     Secondly,  there  was  a  condi- 
tion not  of  trance,  or  somnambulism,  but  of  existence  car- 
ried on  according  to  the  usual  laws  and  conditions,  but 
resulting  apparently  from  the  application  of  magnetism 
during  prolonged  periods  of  time,  during  which  complete 
interruption  of  conscious  identity  seemed  to  have  taken 
place.     The  third  state  was  that  of  trance.     In  the  first 
state  they  were  much  such  as  children  of  that  age  taken 
out  of  a  workhouse,  say,  might  be  expected  to  be — awk- 
ward, shy,  seemingly  stupid,  and  unwilling  to  speak  much 
when  questioned.     In  the  second  state  they  were  bright, 
decidedly  clever,  apt  to  be  pert,  and  pcrfectl}^  self-con- 
fident.    And  in  this  condition  they  had  no  recollection 
whatsoever  of  any  of  the  circumstances,  persons,  or  things 
connected  with  their  previous  lives.     It  was  in  this  state 
that  they  talked  about  "Jack,"  and  in  this  state  that  we 
— my  mother  and  myself — knew  thcni  for  weeks  together. 
While  in  this  state  a  very  slight  accident  was  suflicient  to 
jtroducc  cataleptic  rigidity  and  trance  ;  often  one  without 
the  other.     I  remember  one  of  the  girls  dining  once  with 
us  in  the  midille  of  the  day.    A  dish  of  pease  was  handed 
round,  the  spoon  in  which,  it  being  hot  weather,  was  no 
doubt  heated  by  the  successive  liands  which  had  used  it. 
When  Jane  Okey  grasped  it  in  her  luiiid  to  take  some 
pease  lier  fingers  became  clinched  around  it,  and  she  could 
not  open   tliem.     But  there  ensui-d   no  trance  or  other 
manifestatinii  of  cataleps)'.     On  another  oceasion  she  was 
in  my  mother's  house  playing  on  tlic  accordion,  wliieli  she 
did  very  nicely  in  her  magnetic  state,  ])ut  could  not  do  at 
all  in  her  normal  state,  and  I,  sitting  at  the  other  side  of 
the  room  opposite  to  her,  and  reading  a  book,  was  moving 


2G0  WHAT   I  TvEilEMBER. 

my  hand  in  time  to  the  music,  though  not  thinking  of  her 
or  of  it.  Suddenly  she  fell  back  in  a  trance,  magnetized 
unconsciously  by  me  by  the  "  passes  "  I  was  making  with 
my  hand.  I  have  also  produced  a  similar  result  by  mag- 
netizini;  her  intentionally  behind  her  back,  while  she  was 
entirely  unconscious  of  what  I  was  doing. 

I)Ut  perhaps  the  most  singular  and  remarkable  scene 
connected  with  these  girls  was  that  which  occurred  when, 
their  physical  health  having  been  very  greatly,  if  not  per- 
fectly, restored,  it  became  necessary  to  take  them  out  of 
that  "  second  state  "  which  has  been  above  described,  and 
to  restore  them  to  their  former  consciousness,  their  former 
life,  and  their  parents.  The  scene  was  a  very  painful  one. 
The  mother  only,  as  far  as  I  remember,  was  present.  Mem- 
ory seemed  only  gradually,  and,  at  first,  very  partialh^,  to 
return  to  them.  The  mother  was  a  respectable,  but  poor 
and  very  uneducated  woman,  and  of  course  wholly  differ- 
ent in  intelligence  and  manners  from  all  the  surroundings 
to  which  the  girls  had  become  habituated.  And  the  ex- 
pression of  repulsion  and  dismay  with  which  they  at  first 
absolutely  refused  to  believe  the  statements  that  were 
made  to  them,  or  to  accept  their  mother  as  such,  while 
she,  poor  woman,  was  weeping  at  what  appeared  to  her 
this  newly-developed  absence  of  all  natural  affection,  Avas 
]>ainful  in  the  extreme. 

Subsequently  the  daughter  of  one  of  these  girls  lived 
for  some  years,  I  think,  with  my  brother's  family  at  Wal- 
tham,  as  a  housemaid. 

The  next  reminiscences  I  have  in  connection  with  this 
subject  belong  to  a  time  a  few  years  later. 

We,  my  mother  and  I,  had  heard  tidings  from  America 
of  a  certain  Mr.  Daniel  Hume,  of  whom  very  strange  things 
were  related.  It  was  no  longer  a  question  of  physical  spe- 
cialties and  manifestations,  which  unquestionably  did  tend, 
apart  from  their  medical  value,  to  throw  some  gleams,  or 
liopes  of  gleams,  of  light  on  the  mysterious  laws  of  the 
connection  between  mind  and  matter.  The  new  candidate 
for  the  attention  of  the  world  claimed  {not  to  have  the 
power,  as  was  currently  stated  at  the  time,  but)  to  be  oc- 
casionally and  involuntarily  the  means  of  producing  visi- 


MESMERIC  EXPERIENCES.  261 

tations  from  the  denizens  of  the  spirit  world.  And  before 
long  we  heard  that  he  had  arrived  in  England,  and  was  a 
guest  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Rymer,  a  solicitor,  at  Ealing. 
We  lost  no  time  in  procuring  an  introduction  to  that  esti- 
mable gentleman  and  his  amiable  wife,  and  were  most 
courteously  invited  by  him  to  visit  him  for  the  purpose  of 
interviewing  and  making  acquaintance  with  his  remarkable 
guest.  We  went  to  Ealing,  were  most  hos])itably  received, 
and  forthwith  introduced  to  Mr.  Daniel  Hume,  as  he  was 
then  called,  altliough  he  afterwards  called  himself,  or  came 
to  be  called,  Home.  He  Avas  a  young  American,  about 
nineteen  or  twenty  years  of  age  I  should  say,  rather  tall, 
with  a  loosely-put-together  figure,  red  hair,  large  and  clear 
but  not  bright  blue  eyes,  a  sensual  mouth,  lanky  cheeks, 
and  tliat  sort  of  complexion  which  is  often  found  in  in- 
dividuals of  a  phthisical  diathesis.  He  was  courteous 
enough,  not  unwilling  to  talk,  ready  enough  to  speak  of 
those  curious  jjhenomena  of  his  existence  Avhich  differen- 
tiated him  from  other  mortals,  Init  altogether  unable  or 
unwillinir  to  formulate  or  enter  into  discussion  on  any 
theory  respecting  them.  We  had  tea,  or  rather  supper,  I 
think.  There  were  the  young  people  of  Mr.  Rymer's 
family  about  on  tlie  lawn,  and  among  them  a  pretty  girl, 
with  whom,  naturally  enough,  our  young  "  medium  "  (for 
tliat  had  become  the  accepted  term)  was  more  disposed  to 
fli,-t — after  a  fashion,  I  remember,  which  showed  liim  to 
have  been  a  petted  inmate  of  the  household — than  to  at- 
tend to  matters  of  another  world. 

l>ut  other  guests  arrived,  Sir  David  IJrewster  I  remem- 
ber among  tliem,  and  Daniel  liad  to  be  summoned  to  the 
business  of  the  evening.  This  was  commenced  by  our  all 
l)lacing  ourselves  round  a  very  large  and  very  heavy  old- 
fashioned  mahogany  dining-table,  where  we  sat  in  expec- 
tation of  whatever  should  occur.  Ik-fore  long  little  crack- 
ings were  heanl,  in  the  wood  of  the  table  apjtarently. 
Then  it  (piivered,  became  more  and  mon-  .agitated,  was 
next  raised  first  at  one  end  and  tlien  at  the  other,  and 
finally  was  undeniably  raised  l)odily  from  the  ground.  At 
that  moment  Sir  Daviil  llrewster  and  niyself,  each  acting 
on   Ills   own    niieninniunieated    impulse,  ])recipitated   (»ur- 


262  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

selves  from  our  chairs  under  the  table.  The  table  was 
seen  to  be  for  a  moment  or  two  hovering  in  the  air,  per- 
haps some  four  or  five  inches  from  the  floor,  without  its 
being  possilile  to  detect  any  means  by  Avhich  it  could  have 
been  moved. 

I  said  to  Sir  David,  as  our  heads  were  close  together 
under  the  table,  and  we  were  on  "all  fours"  on  the  floor, 
"  Docs  it  not  seem  that  this  table  is  raised  by  some  means 
wholly  inexplicable?"  "Indeed  it  would  seem  so!"  he 
replied.  But  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Times  the  next  day, 
or  a  day  or  two  after,  in  which  he  gave  an  account  of  his 
visit  to  Ealing,  but  ended  by  denying  that  he  had  seen 
anything  remarkable.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  he  did  do  and 
say  what  I  have  related. 

This  was  the  sum  of  what  occurred.  There  was  no  pre- 
tence of  the  presence  of  any  spiritual  visitor.  I  may  ob- 
serve that  although  an  ordinarily  strong  man  might  have 
lifted  either  end  of  the  table  while  the  other  end  remained 
on  the  ground,  I  am  persuaded  that  no  man  could  have 
raised  it  bodily,  unless,  perhaps,  by  placing  his  shoulders 
under  the  centre  of  it. 

After  the  table  exhibition  Mr,  Hume  fell  into  a  sort  of 
swoon  or  trance.  And  it  was  then  that  he  uttered  the 
often-quoted  words,  "  When  Daniel  recovers  give  him 
some  bottled  porter  !"  which  was  accordingly  done  !  It 
may  be  observed,  however,  that  he  did  appear  to  be  much 
exhausted. 

Various  little  fragments  of  experiences,  and  the  increas- 
ing amount  of  attention  which  the  world  was  giving  to  the 
subject,  had  kept  the  matter  in  my  mind,  till  some  years 
afterwards  I  had  an  opportunity  of  inviting  Mr.  Hume  to 
visit  me  in  my  house  in  Florence.  lie  came,  and  stayed 
with  us  for  a  month.  And  during  the  whole  of  that  time 
— every  evening  as  it  seems  to  my  remembrance,  though 
I  have  no  diary  Avhich  records  the  fact — we  had  frequent 
experiments  of  his  "  mcdiumship," 

Of  course  it  is  (happily  for  the  reader)  out  of  the  ques- 
tion for  me  to  attempt  to  give  any  detailed  record  of  the 
proceedings  and  experiences  of  those  repeated  stances.  I 
can  only  select  a  few  facts  which  a]»peared  to  me  most 


MESMERIC   EXPERIENCES.  263 

Striking  at  the  time,  and  add  the  general  result  as  to  the 
impression  produced  on  my  mind. 

All  our  Florentine  friends  and  acquaintances  were  eager 
to  have  an  o]>portunity  of  passing  an  evening  -with  the  al- 
ready celebrated  medium.  We  generall}^  limited  our  num- 
ber to  about  eight  persons ;  but  pretty  regularly  had  as 
many  as  that  every  evening.  The  performance  usually 
began  by  crackings  and  oscillations  of  the  round  table  at 
which  we  sat.  Tlicn  would  come  more  distinct  raps  ;  then 
the  declaration  that  a  visitor  from  the  spirit  world  was 
present,  then  the  demand  for  whom  the  said  visit  was  in- 
tended, to  which  a  reply  was  "  knocked  out,"  by  raps  in- 
dicating the  letters  required  to  form  the  desired  name  as 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  always  on  the  table,  were  rap- 
idly run  over.  Sometimes  a  mistake  was  made,  and  an 
unintelligible  word  produced  in  consequence  of  too  great 
haste  in  doing  this.  And  then  the  process  had  to  be  gone 
throuEch  again.  The  medium  never  corrected  any  such 
mistake  at  the  moment  it  was  made,  but  seemed  to  await 
the  completion  of  the  process,  as  the  rest  did. 

One  or  more  "  spirits  "  came,  to  the  best  of  my  recollec- 
tion, every  evening.  Nor  could  I  detect  any  sort  of  favor- 
itism, or  motive  of  any  sort  for  the  selection  of  the  parties 
said  to  be  visited.  This  is  the  sort  of  tiling  that  wouUl 
occur:  There  was  present  a  well-known  and  much- re- 
spected English  banker,  established  in  Florence,  a  hale, 
roliust,  cheery  sort  of  man,  and  a  general  favorite — the 
last  man  in  the  world  one  would  say  to  be  credited  with 
nervous  impressionability.  A  "sj)irit"  was  announced  as 
having  "  come  fur  him."  Wlio  is  it  ?  A  name  was  rajipcd 
out  in  the  manner  described.  The  elderly  banker  declared 
that  lie  had  never  had  any  friend  or  relative  of  that  name, 
and  had  never  heard  it  before.  A  second  time  the  name 
was  spelled  out  while  ihe  bunker  sat  threshing  out  his  rec- 
ollections. Suddenly  he  struck  his  forehead  with  his 
hand,  aii<l  exclaimed,  "By  Heavi-n  !  it  is  trui' !  Xaiiuy 
"  (I  forget  the  name).  "She  was  my  nurse  in  York- 
shire more  than  half  a  century  ago!"  Of  course  those 
who  do  not  understand  that  scepticism  i-^  frcfpu-ntly  more 
credulous  than  faith,  sav  J't  once  that    Air.   Hume,  in   the 


2C4  WHAT  I   EEMEilBER. 

exercise  of  his  profession,  like  the  gypsies  in  the  exercise 
of  theirs,  had  made  it  his  business  to  discover  the  former 
existence  of  Nanny ,  and  her  connection  with  tlic  per- 
son he  was  bent  on  befooling.  But  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  total  severance  of  the  old  banker's  infancy  both 
as  to  years  and  localit}'  from  any  of  his  then  surroundings; 
the  fact  that  it  was  so  long  since  he  had  heard  the  name 
in  (juestion  mentioned  that  he  had  himself  entirely  for- 
gotten it ;  and  the  further  fact  that  there  was  nobody  in 
Florence  Avho  had  any  connection  with  him  or  his  family 
in  his  early  years,  and  the  circumstance  that  he  that  even- 
ing saw  Mr.  Hume  for  the  first  time,  I  confess  that  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  improbability  of  any  proposed  explanation 
of  the  mystery  must  be  incalculably  great  indeed,  for  a 
solution  the  improbability  of  Avhich  approaches  so  very 
near  to  impossibility  to  be  preferably  accepted. 

Here  is  one  other  case,  which  I  will  give  both  because 
the  person  on  whose  testimony  the  value  of  it  depends 
was  one  on  whose  accurate  veracity  I  could  depend  as  on 
my  own,  and  because  it  illustrates  one  specialty  of  Mr. 
Hume's  performances  which  I  have  not  yet  spoken  of. 
This  was  a  sensation  of  being  touched,  which  was  frequent- 
ly experienced  by  many  of  those  present.  This  touching 
almost  invariably  took  the  form  of  a  knee  being  grasped 
under  the  table,  or  a  hand  being  laid  upon  it.  In  the  case 
I  am  about  to  relate  this  was  experienced  in  a  more  re- 
markable manner. 

A  very  highly  valued  old  female  servant,  who  had  lived 
in  my  then  wife's  family  since  her  birth,  and  had  followed 
her  when  she  married  me,  had  some  months  previously 
died  in  my  house.  The  affection  which  had  subsisted  be- 
tween lier  and  my  wife  was  a  very  old  and  a  very  strong 
one.  Now  there  was,  it  would  seem,  an  old  nursery  pet 
name,  by  which  this  woman  had  been,  long  years  before,  in 
the  habit  of  callintj  mv  Avife.  I  had  never  heard  it,  or  of 
it.  My  wife  herself  had  never  lieard  it  for  very  many 
years.  She  and  the  old  servant  had  never  for  years  and 
years  spoken  on  the  subject.  But  one  evening  this  pet 
name  was  very  distinctly  spelled  ;  and  ray  wife  declared 
that  she  at  the  same  time  felt  a  sort  of  pressure  at  her 


MESMERIC   EXPERIENCES.  265 

side,  as  she  sat  in  the  circle,  as  if  some  person  or  thing 
had  been  endeavoring  to  iind  a  place  by  her  side.  But 
for  all  that,  my  wife,  though  utterly  mystified  and  incapa- 
ble of  suggesting  any  theory  on  the  subject,  was  a  strong 
disbeliever  in  all  Mr.  Hume's  pretensions.  She  strongly 
disliked  the  man.  And  were  it  not  that,  as  we  all  know, 
her  sex  never  permits  their  estimate  of  facts  to  be  influ- 
enced by  their  feelings,  it  might  be  supposed  possible  that 
this  biassed  her  mind  upon  the  subject. 

I  could  add  dozens  of  cases  to  the  above  two,  but  they 
were  all  very  similar;  and  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the 
same  sort  of  thing  occurred  over  and  over  again. 

I  may  mention,  however,  that  I  observed  that  any  ques- 
tion addressed  to  the  supposed  spirits  bearing  on  tlieology 
and  matters  of  creed  were  invariably  answered  according 
to  the  views  of  the  questioner.  Catholics,  Protestants, 
materialists,  were  all  impartially  confirmed  in  the  convic- 
tions of  their  diverse  persuasions. 

Also  I  should  not  omit  to  mention  that  my  wife,  taking 
her  occasion  from  Mr.  Hume's  complaints  of  his  own  weak- 
ness of  lungs,  spoke  of  my  brother's  death  in  Belgium  and 
of  my  life  at  Ostend,  and  at  a  sitting  some  few  days  after- 
wards asked  if  she  could  be  told  where  I  had  last  seen 
my  brother  on  earth.  The  answer  came  jiromptly,  "At 
Ostend."  But  the  truth  is,  as  the  reader  knows,  that  I 
took  my  leave  of  him  on  board  the  Ostend  steamer  in  the 
Thames. 

My  account  of  these  sittings  would  not  bo  as  judicially 
accurate  as  I  Ijave  endeavored  to  make  it,  however,  were 
I  to  omit  the  statement  that  j\Ir.  Ihiine  on  two  or  three 
occasions  offered  to  cause  "  spirit  hands  "  to  become  visible 
to  us.  The  room  was  darkened  for  this  purpose;  and  at 
the  opposite  side  of  a  rather  large  tabh-  from  that  at  which 
the  siicctators  were  sitting  certain  forms  of  hands  did  be- 
come faintly  visibh-.  To  me  they  ap|ieared  like  long  kid 
gloves  stuffed  with  some  sul)stance.  But  I  am  fur  from 
asserting  that  they  were  such. 

On  the  whole,  the  impression  KTl  on    my  miml  by  my 
month-lonir  intercourse  with  Mr.  Hume  was  a  disagrieable 
one  of  doubt  and  perplexity.      I  was  not  left  with  the  eon- 
12 


■266  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

viction  that  he  was  an  altog^ether  trustworthy  and  sincere 
man.  Nor  was  I  lully  persuaded  of  the  reverse.  I  saw 
nothing  which  appeared  to  me  to  compel  the  conclusion 
that  some  agency  unknown  to  the  ascertained  and  recog- 
nized laws  of  nature  was  at  work.  But  I  did  hear  many 
communications  made  in  Mr.  Hume's  presence  in  the  man- 
ner Avhich  has  been  described,  which  seemed  to  me  to  be 
wholly  inexplicable  by  any  theory  I  could  bring  to  bear 
upon  them.  It  may  be  observed  that  no  theory  of  thought- 
reading  will  serve  the  turn,  for  in  many  cases  the  facts, 
circumstances,  or  names  communicated  were  evidently  not 
in  the  thoughts  of  the  persons  to  whom  they  were  so  com- 
municated. Of  course  it  may  be  answered,  "  Ah  !  but 
however  '  evident '  that  may  have  seemed  to  you,  the  facts 
icere  in  the  thoughts  of  the  2>arties  in  question."  To  this 
I  can  only  reply  that  to  me,  my  very  complete  knowledge 
of  the  i^ersons  in  question,  and  of  their  veracity — one  of 
them,  as  in  the  case  above  related,  being  my  own  wife — 
renders  the  explanation  suggested  absolutely  inadmissible. 

I  have  seen  at  various  subsequent  periods  a  great  many 
professors  of  "  mediumship  "  and  their  performances.     I 

Avas  present  at  many  sittings  given  by  Mrs.  G ,  a  huge 

mountain  of  a  woman,  very  uneducated,  apparently  good- 
natured  and  simple,  but  Avith  a  tendency  to  become  dis- 
agreeable when  her  attempts  at  communication  with  the 
unseen  world  were  declared  to  be  failures. 

I  will  give  here  the  copy  of  a  letter  which  I  wrote  to 
the  secretary  of  "  The  Dialectical  Society,"  which  had  ap- 
plied to  me  for  my  "  experiences  "  on  the  subject.  I  can- 
not at  the  present  day  sum  up  any  better  the  conclusions 
to  which  they  led  me. 

"Florknce,  2'7</t  December,  1869. 

"  Sir, — In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  17th  I  can  only  say  that  I  have  but 
little  to  add  to  those  previous  statements  of  mine,  of  which  you  afe  in  pos- 
session. 

"  With  regard  to  the  sittings  with  Mrs.  G.,  I  can  only  say  that  the  great- 
est watchfulness  on  the  part  of  those  sharing  in  them  failed  to  detect  (as 
regards  the  physical  phenomena)  any  trace  of  imposture.  These  phe- 
nomena, which  took  place  in  the  dark,  such  as  the  sudden  falling  on  the 
table  of  a  large  quantity  of  jonquils,  which  filled  the  whole  ro<;m  with 
their  odor,  were  extraordinary,  and  on  any  common  theory  of  physics  un- 


MESMERIC   EXPERIENCES.  267 

accountable.  The  room  in  which  this  took  place  had  been  completely  ex- 
amined by  me,  and  Mrs.  G.'s  person  had  been  carefully  searched  by  my 
Wife.  With  regard  to  metaphysical  phenomena,  an  attempt  to  hold  com- 
munication with  intelligences  other  than  those  present  in  the  flesh  was 
stated  by  a  lady  to  whom  a  communication  was  addressed  to  have  been 
extraordinarily  successful,  and  to  have  been  proved  by  the  event.  In  the 
case  of  myself  and  my  wife  all  such  attempts  resulted  in  total  failure. 

"I  have  reccntlv  had  a  sitting  with  Dr.  Willis  of  Boston.  The  phvsical 
manifestations  (in  the  dark)  were  remarkable  and  perplexing.  The  at 
tempts  at  spiritual  communication  were  altogether  failures. 

"  In  short,  the  result  of  my  experience  thus  far  is  this — that  the  physi- 
cal phenomena  frequently  produced  are,  in  many  cases,  not  the  result  of 
any  sleight  of  hand,  and  that  those  who  have  witnessed  them  with  due 
attention  must  be  convinced  that  there  is  no  analogy  between  them  and 
the  tricks  of  professed  '  conjurors.'  I  may  also  mention  that  Bosco,  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  professors  of  legerdemain  ever  known,  in  a  con- 
versation with  me  upon  the  subject,  utterly  scouted  the  idea  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  such  phenomena  as  I  saw  produced  by  Mr.  Hume  being  per- 
formed by  any  of  the  resources  of  his  art. 

"  To  what  sort  of  agency  these  results  are  to  be  attributed  I  have  no 
idea,  and  give  no  opinion ;  although  (inasmuch  as  I  consider  that  the  word 
'  supernatural '  involves  a  contradiction  in  terms)  I  hold  that  to  admit  that 
the  phenomena  exist,  implies  the  admission  that  they  are  'natural,'  or  in 
accordance  with  some  law  of  nature. 

"With  regard  to  the  metaphysical  phenomena,  though  I  have  witnessed 
many  strange  things,  I  have  never  known  any  that  satisfactorily  excluded 
\.\\e  jx>ssibility  of  mistake  or  imposture. 

"  Your  obedient  servant,  T.  Adolphus  Trollope." 

If  I  am  asked  what,  upon  tlic  whole,  is  my  present  state 
of  mind  upon  the  subject,  I  can  only  say  that  it  is  that 
unpleasant  one  e.xpressed  in  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon's  often- 
quoted  words,  "  I  doubt." 

JJcfore,  however,  quittini;  the  subject,  my  cfossip  about 
which  has  run  to  a  leni^th  only  excusable  on  the  ground 
of  the  very  general  interest  tl)at  has  been  attracted  by  it, 
I  will  give  two  more  excerpts  fiom  my  recollections,  which 
rcl.iti!  to  cases  resjx'Ctiug  which  I  have  no  doubt.  They 
both  refer,  however,  to  purely  j)hysical  jthenomena. 

A  French  professor  of  "animal  magnetism"  came  to 
Florence.  His  name,  I  think,  was  Lalontaine.  He  IkkI 
a  young  girl  with  hini,  his  patient.  \\v  brought  her  to 
my  house,  in  which  there  was  a  long  room,  at  one  end  of 
which  he  directed  me  io  stand,  then  put  the  girl  imme- 
diately in  front  of  me,  and  told  me  to  hold  her,  so  as  to 


268  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

prevent  her  from  coming  to  him,  Avlien,  standing  nt  the 
farther  end  of  the  room,  he  should  draw  her  to  him.  I 
accordingly  placed  my  arms  around  her  waist,  interlacing 
my  fingers  in  front  of  her.  She  was  a  small,  slight  girl, 
and  I  was  at  that  time  a  somewhat  exceptionally  strong 
man.  The  operator,  then  standing  at  the  distance  of  some 
twenty  feet  or  more,  made  "passes,"  as  it  were,  beckon- 
incr  her  with  his  hands  to  come  to  him.  She  struccQrled 
forward.  I  held  her  back  with  all  my  force,  but  was 
dragged  after  her  towards  the  magnetizer.  This  may  be 
accepted  as  an  absolutely  accurate  and  certain  fact. 

This  same  Lafontaine  had  entirely  failed  in  attempts  to 
magnetize  me,  and  in  telling  me,  as  he  promised  to  do, 
what  I  in  my  house  was  doing  at  a  given  moment  while 
he  was  absent. 

My  second  excerpt  concerns  also  my  own  experience, 
and  shall  be  given  with  equally  truthful  accuracy. 

My  wife,  my  wife's  sister,  and  myself  had  been  spend- 
ing the  evening  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Seymour  Kirkup,  an 
artist,  who,  once  well  known  in  the  artistic  world,  lived  on 
in  Florence  to  a  great  age  after  that  world  had  forofotten 
hira.  A  girl,  his  daughter  by  a  servant  who  lived  several 
years  in  his  house,  and  who  also  had  pretended  to  verj' 
strongly  developed  spiritualistic  powers,  developed,  as  he 
asserted,  similar  powers  in  a  very  wonderful  degree.  And 
during  his  latter  years  the  old  man  absolutely  and  entirely 
lived,  in  every  respect,  according  to  the  advice  and  dic- 
tates of  "  the  spirits,"  as  oracularly  declared  by  Imogcne, 
for  that  was  her  name.  In  short,  she  was  a  clever,  worth- 
less hussy,  and  he  was  a  besotted  old  man.  Our  visit  to 
his  house  was  to  witness  some  of  Imogene's  performances. 
There  was  also  present  a  Colonel  IJowcn,  Avho  Avas  a  con- 
vinced believer. 

I,  ray  -wife,  and  sister-in-law  detected  unmistakabl}^  the 
girl's  clumsy  attempts  at  legerdemain,  but  knew  poor  old 
Kirkup  far  too  well  to  make  any  attempt  to  convict  her. 
But  as  we  walked  home,  with  our  minds  full  of  the  sub- 
ject, we  said,  "  Let  us  try  whether  we  can  produce  any 
effect  upon  a  table,  since  that  seems  the  regulation  first- 
step  in  these  mysteries ;  and,  at  least,  we  shall  have  the 


MErSMEEIC   EXPERIEN'CES.  269 

certainty  of  not  being  befooled  by  trickery."  So,  on 
reaching  home,  we  took  a  table — rather  a  remarkable  one. 
It  was  small,  not  above  eighteen  or  twenty  inches  a<?ross 
the  top  of  it.  But  it  was  Vf:ry  much  heavier  than  any  or- 
dinary table  of  that  size,  the  stem  of  it  being  a  massive 
bit  of  ancient  chestnut-wood  carving  which  I  had  adapted 
to  that  j>urpose. 

Well,  in  a  minute  or  two  the  table  began  to  move  very 
unmistakably.  We  were  startled,  and  began  to  think  that 
the  ladies'  dresses  must  have,  unconsciously  to  them,  pressed 
against  it.  We  stood  back  therefore,  taking  care  that 
nothing  but  the  tips  of  our  fingers  touched  the  table.  I". 
still  moved  I  We  said  that  some  unconscious  exertion  of 
muscular  force  must  have  caused  the  movement,  and, 
finallv,  we  suspended  our  fingers  about  an  inch  or  so  above 
the  surface  of  the  table,  taking  the  utmost  care  to  touch 
it  in  no  way  whatever.  The  table  still  turned,  and  that  to 
such  an  extent  that,  entirely  untouched,  it  turned  itself 
over,  and  fell  to  the  ground. 

I  can  only  observe  of  this,  as  the  little  boy  said  who 
was  accused  of  relating  an  impossibilty  as  a  fact,  "  I  don't 
say  it  is  possible,  I  only  say  it  Ls  true  1" 

In  Kirkup's  case  his  entire  and  never-varying  conviction 
of  the  truthfulness  of  Miss  Imogene's  material  manifesta- 
tions and  spiritual  revelations  was  the  more  remarkable  in 
that  he  had  for  many  years — for  all  his  life,  for  aught  I  know 
to  the  contrary — entertained  and  professed  the  most  thor- 
ough persuasion  of  the  futility  and  absurdity  of  all  belief 
that  the  soul  of  man  survived  material  death.  His  tenets 
on  this  subject  are  the  more  strongly  impressed  on  my 
meraorv  by  an  absurd  incident  that  occurred  to  my  pres- 
ent wife  in  connection  with  his  materialistic  theories. 

He  and  she  were  one  day  talking  upon  the  subject,  as 
thev  sat  tite-d-tite  on  opposite  sides  of  a  table.  Now 
Kirkup  wa«  v«'rv  deaf — worse  by  a  great  df  -Z'  *^  ■  I  am — 
an<l  my  wife  failing  to  make  him  hear  a  q'  ^he  }»ut 

U)  him,  and  having  no  other  writing  materials  at  hand, 
hastily  drew  a  card  from  her  card-case  and  [»encilled  on 
the  back  of  it :  "  What  are  your  grounds  for  assurance 
that  the  visible  death  of  the  body  is  the  death  of  the  sj.irit 


270  WHAT    I    IlEMEMIiER. 

also  ?"  lie  read,  and  addressed  himself  to  reply,  letting 
the  card  fall  on  the  table  between  them,  which  t^he,  think- 
ing only  of  the  matter  in  discussion,  mechanically  put 
back  into  her  card-case,  and  left  at  the  next  house  at  which 
she  happened  to  be  making  a  morning-call ! 

Kirkuj)'s  conversion  to  spiritualism  was  so  complete 
that,  as  I  have  said,  his  entire  life  was  shaped  acconling 
to  the  dictates  which  Miss  Imogene  chose  to  represent  as 
coming  from  her  spiritual  visitors.  The  old  man  had 
lived  for  very  many  years  in  Florence.  All  the  interests 
which  still  bound  him  to  life  were  there,  and  he  was  much 
attached  to  the  city  in  which  so  large  a  portion  of  his 
long  life  had  been  passed.  But  Imogene  one  day  an- 
nounced that  "  the  spirits  "  declared  that  he  must  go  and 
live  in  Leghorn  !  Of  course  the  blow  to  the  old  man  was 
a  terrible  one,  but  he  meekly  and  unhesitatingly  obeyed, 
and  submitted  to  be  u])rooted  when  he  was  past  eighty 
aud  packed  off  to  Leghorn  !  I  discovered  subsequently — 
what  I  might  have  guessed  at  the  time — that  the  good- 
for-nothing  jade  had  a  lover  at  Leghorn.  Kirkup's  new 
faith  in  the  existence  of  a  soul  in  man,  separable  from  his 
body,  continued  firm,  I  believe,  till  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred shortly  afterwards. 

I  have,  at  various  times  and  in  various  countries,  been 
present  at  the  performances  of  spiritualistic  rnediurns  (a 
monstrous  word,  but  one  can't  write  media),  and  always 
with  a  uniformly  similar  result  in  one  respect.  No  non- 
material  experience  whatever  has  ever  been  vouchsafed  to 
me  myself.  Material  phenomena  of  a  very  surprising 
nature,  and  altogether  unaccountable  in  accordance  with 
any  received  physical  theories,  I  have  seen  in  great  abun- 
dance. And  I  must  in  justice  say  that  the  performances 
of  Messrs.  Maskclync  and  Cooke,  which  attracted  so  much 
attention  in  Piccadilly,  masterly  as  they  were  as  exhibi- 
tions of  legerdemain,  did  not  by  any  means  succeed  in 
proving  the  imposture  of  the  pretensions  of  Hume  and 
otliers  by  doing  the  same  things.  I  think  the  Piccadilly 
perfortnances  did  achieve  this  as  regards  the  tying  and 
loosening  of  knots  in  a  dark  cabinet.  But  when  one  of 
the  performers  above  mentioned  proceeded  to  "  float  in 


MESMERIC   EXPERIENCES.  271 

the  air  "  he  only  demonstrated  the  impossibility  of  doing, 
by  any  means  known  to  his  art,  that  which  Hume  —  or 
Home — was  declared,  on  the  most  indisputable  testimony, 
to  have  done.  Mr.  Maskelyne  certainly  "  floated  in  tlie 
air"  above  the  heads  of  the  spectators,  but  I  saw  very  un- 
mistakably the  wire  by  which  he  was  suspended.  It  may 
not  have  been  icire,  but  I  saw  the  cord,  thread,  or  what- 
ever it  may  have  been,  by  which  he  was  suspended.  Nor 
is  it  possible  to  doubt  that  the  gentlemen  who  saw,  or 
supposed  themselves  to  have  seen,  Mr.  Hume  floating  in 
the  air  above  them  would  have  failed  to  detect  any  such 
artifice  as  that  by  which  the  professor  of  legerdemain  was 
enabled  to  do  the  same.  And  then  we  must  not  lose  sight 
of  the  all-important  difference  l)etween  the  two  perform- 
ances, arising  from  the  fact  that  the  one  performer  has  at 
command  all  the  facilities  afforded  by  a  locale  in  which  he 
has  had  abundant  opportunity  of  making  every  prepara- 
tion which  the  resources  of  his  art  could  suggest  to  him  ; 
whereas  the  other  exhibits  his  wonders  under  circum- 
stances absolutely  excluding  the  possibility  of  any  such 
preparation. 

But  Z  never  saw  Mr.  Hume  float  in  the  air.  The  only 
]iliysical  phenomena  wliich  I  saw  jiroduced  by  him  con- 
sisted in  the  movinij  and  liftini;  of  tables — in  some  cases 
very  heavy  tables.  But  I  have  witnessed,  in  very  numer- 
ous cases,  communications  made  by  the  medium  to  indi- 
viduals who  have  declared  it  to  have  been  absolutely  im- 
possible that  Mr.  Hume  should  by  any  ordinary  means 
iiave  known  the  facts  communicated.  And  it  has  api)eared 
to  me,  knowing  all  the  circumstances,  to  have  been  as 
nearly  impossible  as  can  well  be  conceived  without  being 
absolutely  so. 

Here  is  one  more  remarkable  case — one  out  of  do/.ens  of 
such.  A  midille-ag«'<l  Italian  gentleman  of  the  Jewish  per- 
suasion asked  that  the  spirit  of  his  father,  who,  it  was 
stated  by  the  medium,  was  present,  should  mention  where 
he  and  his  son,  then  communicating  with  him,  last  met  on 
earth.  It  should  be  stated  that  the  in<)uirer,  having  aban- 
doned the  faith  of  his  fathers,  j>rofessed  entire  disbelief  in 
any  existence  of  the  soul,  or  any  future  life.     Tbe  answer 


272  WHAT    I    KEMEMBEIJ. 

to  his  query  was  spellt-d  out  in  the  manner  I  have  already 
described,  a  certain  Italian  city  being  named,  I  watched 
the  face  of  the  sceptical  inquirer  as  the  letters  were 
"  rapped  out "  and  gradually  completed  the  name  required. 
And  I  needed  no  confession  of  the  fact  from  him  to  know 
that  the  answer  had  been  correctly  given.  I  thought  the 
man  would  have  fallen  from  his  chair.  He  became  ghast- 
ly pale,  and  trembled  all  over.  lie  was  in  truth  very  ter- 
ribly impressed  and  affected,  but — and  the  phenomenon  is 
a  very  curious,  though  by  no  means  an  uncommon  one — a 
few  days  afterwards  the  impression  had  entirely  faded 
from  his  mind.  He  continued  fully  to  admit  that  the  fact 
which  had  occurred  was  altogether  inexplicable,  but  wholly 
refused  to  believe  that  it  involved  any  supposition  incon- 
sistent Avith  his  strictly  materialistic  creed. 

In  the  above  case,  as  in  that  of  the  banker  given  above, 
it  may  of  course  be  said  that  it  was  within  the  bounds  of 
possibility  that  IMr.  Hume  should  have  previously  ascer- 
tained the  fact  that  he  stated.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible 
for  me  here  to  explain  to  the  reader  every  detail  of  the 
circumstances  that  seem  to  me  to  render  such  an  explana- 
tion wholly  inadmissible,  I  can  only  say  that  to  a  niiutl 
as  entirely  open  upon  the  subject  as  I  think  my  mind  is, 
the  supposition  in  question  appears  so  improbable  that  it 
fails  to  impress  me  as  a  possibility. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  to  say  that  every  attempt  of 
a  similar  kind,  whether  by  Mr.  Hume  or  by  any  other  so- 
called  medium,  in  which  I  myself  have  been  the  subject 
of  the  ex])eriment,  has  absolutely  and  wholly  failed.  Mr, 
Hume  never,  to  the  best  of  my  remembrance,  introduced 
or  announced  the  presence  of  any  spirit  "  for  me,"  I  was 
like  the  boy  at  school  whom  no  relative  ever  comes  to  see. 

The  Mrs.  G who  has  been  mentioned  at  an  earlier  page 

announced  upon  one  occasion  the  presence  of  my  mother 
Avith  results  which  would  have  sufficed  to  prove  very  sat- 
isfactorily that  my  mother's  spirit  was  not  there,  if  I  had 
previously  fully  believed  the  case  to  have  been  otherwise. 

I  once  went  to  visit  the  then  celebrated  Alexis  in  Paris. 
He  knew  that  I  was  a  resident  in  Florence,  and  began  op- 
erations by  proposing  to  describe  to  me  my  house  there. 


MESilEKIC    EXPERIENCES.  273 

Of  course  such  an  experiment  admitted  of  almost  every 
conceivable  kind  of  mystification  and  uncertainty.  I  told 
him  that  the  proposed  description  would  necessarily  oc- 
cupy more  of  his  time  than  seemed  to  me  needed  for  pro- 
ducing the  conviction  of  the  reality  of  his  power  which  I 
was  anxious  to  acquire  ;  and  that  it  would  he  abundantly 
sufficient  for  that  purpose  if  he  would  simply  tell  me  the 
number  composed  of  four  figures  which  I  had  written  on 
a  piece  of  paper,  and  sealed  in  a  (perfectly  non-transpar- 
ent) packet.     He  refused  to  make  the  attempt. 

Many  years  subsequently  I  attended  the  seances  of  a 
gentleman  in  London,  whose  performances  attracted  a 
good  deal  of  attention  at  the  time — of  an  unfavorable  de- 
scription, for  the  most  part — and  whose  chief  sjjecialty  con- 
sisted in  enclosing  a  piece  of  slate  pencil  loosely  between 
two  ordinary  framed  slates,  securely  tied  together,  and 
awaiting  communications  to  be  made  by  writing  produced 
on  the  slate  by  the  pencil  thus  enclosed  acting  automati- 
cally. I  did  see  written  words  thus  produced,  where  to 
the  best  of  my  observation  there  had  been  no  words  be- 
fore the  slates  were  (quite  securely)  tied  together.  Nor 
could  I  form  any  theory  or  guess  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  this  writing  was  produced  under  circumstances 
Avhich  seemed  to  make  it  perfectly  impossible  that  it 
should  be  so  produced.  But  the  words  so  written  con- 
veyed no  remarkable  or  surprising  information — and,  in- 
deed, to  the  best  of  my  recollection  had  little  meaning  at 
all. 

Thus  once  again  that  portion  of  the  performance  whic  h 
was,  or  might  have  been,  of  the  nature  of  sleight  of  hand, 
was  done  so  wt-ll  as  to  cause  much  puzzlement  and  sur- 
prise; wliile  what  may  be  called  the  spiritual  jiart  of  the 
promised  jihenomcnon  faih'd  cfifircli/. 

I  have  witnessed  the  jierformances  of  sundry  other  me- 
iViu/ns — I  hate  to  write  the  word  ! — always  with  the  same 
net  result.  'J'hat  is  to  say,  the  strictly  j»hysi(al  phenome- 
na witnessed  were  in  very  many  cases — not  in  all — utter- 
ly una<Tountable  and  incomj>relien.sible,  The  statement 
that  the  j)erformances  oi  many  masters  of  legerdemain 
are  also  unaecountabh-  and   incomprehensible  a|ipears  to 


274  WHAT   I   KEMEMBEK. 

mc,  Avliile  I  fully  admit  the  truth  of  it,  to  be  of  very  little 
value.  The  phenomena  ]>ro(luced  by  these  professors  are 
in  almost  every  case  totally  different  in  kind,  and  are  in 
every  case  placed  in  a  wholly  different  category  by  the 
fact  that  the  performers  of  them  have  the  assistance  of 
tools  and  means — the  highly-skilled  preparation  and  com- 
bination of  which  constitute  a  very  important  (if  not  the 
most  essential)  part  of  their  professional  equipment — and 
of  the  resources  of  their  own  prepared  locale.  Further- 
more, I  cannot  forget  the  testimony  of  that  "iH'ince  of 
conjurors,"  Bosco,  to  the  eft'ect  that  the  phenomena  which 
I  declared  to  him  I  had  seen  were  entirely  unachievable 
by  any  of  the  resources  of  his  art. 

Above  all  I  have  the  certain  knowledge  (resting  not 
only  on  my  own  very  perfect  recollection,  but  on  the  un- 
varying testimony  of  the  two  other  persons  engaged  in 
the  experiment)  that  a  table  did  move  much  and  violently, 
as  recorded  above,  while  wholly  and  certainly  untouched 
by  any  human  hands  or  persons,  and  uncommunicated  with 
— if  I  may  use  such  an  expression — save  by  the  minds  of 
the  operators. 

The  net  conclusion,  therefore,  of  my  rather  extensive 
experience  in  the  matter  is,  that  as  regards  phenomena 
purely  jjhysical,  such  have  been  and  are  frequently  pro- 
duced by  the  practisers  of  "animal  magnetism" — or  by 
whatever  name  it  may  be  preferred  to  call  it — of  a  nature 
wholly  inexplicable  by  any  of  the  theories  or  suggestions 
which  have  been  adduced  for  the  explanation  of  them. 

"With  regard  to  non-physical  phenomena — that  is  to 
say,  such  as  imply  the  abnormal  exercise  of  intelligences, 
whether  incarnate  or  disembodied,  outside  the  intellijxence 
of  the  individual  experimenting — I  have  to  testify  that  I 
have  heard  from  many  highly  credible  persons  the  state- 
ment of  their  own  experience  of  such  communication  with 
intelligences  other  than  their  own.  And  I  have  heard 
such  statements  immediately  on  the  occurrence  of  the 
facts.  But  I  have  never  in  my  own  person  received  or 
been  made  the  subject  of  any  such. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

IN    "yiE    XORTII    OP    ENGLAND. 

No  !  as  I  said  at  the  end  of  the  last  chapter  but  one, 
before  I  was  led  away  by  the  circumstances  of  that  time 
to  give  the  world  the  benefit  of  my  magnetic  reminis- 
cences— vcdeat  quantum! — I  was  not  yet  bitten,  despite 
Colley  Grattan's  urgings,  with  any  temptation  to  attempt 
fiction,  and  "  passion,  me  boy  I"  But  I  am  surprised  on 
turning  over  my  old  diaries  to  find  how  much  I  was  writ- 
ing, and  planning  to  write,  in  those  days,  and  not  less  sur- 
prised at  the  amount  of  running  about  which  I  accom- 
plished. 

My  life  in  those  years  of  the  thirties  must  have  been  a 
very  busy  one.  I  find  myself  writing  and  sending  off  a 
surprising  number  of  "articles"  on  all  sorts  of  subjects — 
reviews,  sketches  of  travel,  biographical  notices,  fragments 
from  the  byways  of  history,  and  the  like,  to  all  kinds  of 
periodical  publications,  many  of  them  long  since  dead  and 
forgotten.  That  the  world  should  have  forgotten  all  these 
articles  "  goes  without  saying."  But  what  is  not  perhaps 
so  common  an  incident  in  the  career  of  a  penman  is,  that 
/  had  in  the  majority  of  cases  utterly  forgotten  them,  and 
all  about  them,  until  they  were  recalled  to  mind  by  turn- 
ing the  yellow  ])ages  of  my  treasured  but  almost  e(pially 
forgotten  journals  !  I  beg  to  observe,  also,  that  all  this 
pen-work  was  not  only  ]»rinte<l  but  pohJ  for.  My  motives 
were  of  a  decidedly  mercenary  description.  "  Tfir  scribit 
f(i)it('i  (hictus,  (it  il/i'fKi/ii-.''''  T  bclongetl  oiniihat  ically  to  the 
latter  category,  and  little  indeed  of  my  multifarious  ])ro- 
<luctions  ever  found  its  final  resting-place  in  the  waste- 
paper  basket.  They  were  rejected  often,  but  redespatched 
a  second  and  a  third  time,  if  necessary,  to  some  other 
"  organ,"  and  eventually  swallowed  by  some  editor  or 
other. 


276  WHAT   I   RKMKMBER. 

I  am  surprised,  too,  at  tlie  amount  of  locomotion  which 
I  contrived  to  combine  with  all  this  scribbling.  I  must 
have  gone  about,  I  think,  like  a  tax-gatherer,  with  an  ink- 
stand slung  to  ray  button-hole.  And  in  truth  I  was  in- 
dustrious; for  I  iind  myself  in  full  swing  of  some  journey, 
arriving  at  my  inn  tired  at  night,  and  finishing  and  send- 
ing off  some  article  before  I  went  to  my  bed.  But  it  must 
have  been  only  by  means  of  the  joint  sujiplies  contributed 
by  all  my  editors  that  I  could  have  found  the  means  of 
paying  all  the  stage-coaches,  diligences,  and  steamboats 
which  I  find  the  record  of  my  continually  employing. 
^' JVavibus  atque  Quaclrlgis  petimiis  hene  vivereV  And  I 
succeeded  by  their  means  in  living,  if  not  well,  at  least  very 
pleasantly. 

For  I  was  bom  a  rambler. 

I  heard  just  now  a  story  of  a  little  boy,  who  replied  to 
the  common  question,  "  What  he  would  like  to  be  when 
he  grew  up  ?"  by  saying  that  he  should  like  to  be  either  a 
giant  or  a  retired  stockbroker !  I  find  the  qualifying  ad- 
jective delicious,  and  admire  the  pronounced  taste  for  re- 
pose indicated  by  either  side  of  the  alternative.  But  my 
propensities  were  more  active,  and  in  the  days  before  I 
entered  my  teens  I  used  always  to  reply  to  similar  de- 
mands, that  I  would  be  a  "  king's  messenger."  I  knew 
no  other  life  which  approached  so  nearly  to  perpetual  mo- 
tion. "  The  road  "  was  my  paradise,  and  it  is  a  true  say- 
ing that  the  child  is  father  to  tlie  man.  The  Shakespearian 
passage  which  earliest  impressed  my  childish  mind  and 
carried  with  it  my  heartiest  sympathies  was  the  song  of 
old  Autolycus  : 

"Jog  on,  jog  on,  the  foot-path  way, 
And  merrily  heiit  the  stile-a  : 
Your  merry  heart  goes  all  the  day, 
Your  sad  tires  in  a  mile-a." 

Over  how  many  miles  of  "  foot-path  way,"  under  how 
many  green  hedges,  has  my  childish  treble  chanted  that 
enlivening  ditty  ! 

But  that  was  in  much  earlier  days  to  those  I  am  now 
writing  of. 

During  the  years  between  my  dreary  time  at  Birming- 


IN  THE   NORTH   OF  ENGLAND.  277 

liam  and  my  lirst  departure  for  Italy,  I  find  the  record  of 
many  pedestrian  or  other  rambles  in  England  and  abroad. 
There  they  are,  all  recorded  day  by  day — the  qualities  of 
the  inns  and  the  charges  at  them  (not  so  much  less  than 
those  of  the  present  day  as  might  be  imagined,  M'itli  the 
exception  of  the  demands  for  beds),  the  beauty  and  spec- 
ialties of  the  views,  the  talk  of  wayfaring  companions, 
the  careful  measurements  of  the  churches,  the  ever-recui*- 
ring  ascent  of  the  towers  of  them,  etc.,  etc. 

Here  and  there  in  the  mountains  of  chaff  there  may  be 
a  grain  worth  preserving,  as  where  I  read  that  at  Iladdon 
Hall  the  old  lady  who  showed  the  house,  and  who  boasted, 
that  her  ancestors  had  been  servitors  of  the  possessors  of 
it  for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  pointed  out  to  me 
the  portrait  of  one  of  them,  who  had  been  "forester," 
hanging  in  the  hall.  She  also  pointed  out  the  window 
from  which  a  certain  heiress  had  eloped,  and  by  doing  so 
had  carried  the  hall  and  lands  into  the  family  of  the  pres- 
ent owners,  and  told  me  that  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  shortly  before 
the  ])ublicati()n  of  her  ''  ^Mysteries  of  Udolpho,"  had  visited 
Iladdon,  and  had  sat  at  that  window  busily  writing  for  a 
long  time. 

I  seem  to  have  been  an  amateur  of  sermons  in  those 
days,  from  the  constant  records  I  find  of  sermons  listened 
to,  by  no  means  always,  or  indeed  generally,  compliment- 
ary to  the  preachers.  Here  is  an  entry  criticising,  with 
young  presumption,  a  sermon  by  Dr.  Dibdin,  whose  bib- 
lioi)hile  books,  however,  I  had  much  taste  for : 

"  I  heard  Dr.  Dibdin  jjreath.  He  preache<l,  with  much 
gesticulation,  emphasis,  and  giimacc,  the  most  utterly 
trashy  sermon  I  ever  heard  ;  words — words — words — with- 
out the  sliadow  of  an  idea  in  them." 

I  remember,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  a  slirewd  sort  of  an 
old  larly,  the  mother,  I  think,  of  the  curate  of  the  jiarisli, 
who  heard  me,  as  we  were  leaving  the  church,  ex]iressiiig 
my  opinion  of  the  doctor's  discourse,  saying,  "  Well,  it  is 
a  very  ohl  story,  young  gentleman,  and  it  is  mighty  difli- 
cult  to  fiTid  anything  new  to  8ay  about  it  !" 

The  bibliomaniacal  doeior,  however,  seems  to  have 
))]eused  me  better  out  n\'  the  puljiit  tliaii  in  it,  for  I   find 


278  WHAT   I   REMEMliER. 

that  "  he  called  in  the  afternoon  and  chatted  amusingly 
for  an  hour.  He  fell  tooth  and  nail  upon  the  Oxford 
Tracts  men,  and  told  us  of  a  Mr.  Wackerbarth,  a  curate 
in  Essex,  a  Cambridge  man,  who,  he  says,  elevates  the 
host,  crosses  himself,  and  advocates  burning  of  heretics. 
It  seems  to  me,  however,"  continues  this  censorious  young 
diarist,  "that  those  who  object  to  the  persecution,  even  to 
extermination  of  heretics,  admit  the  uncertainty  and  dulii- 
ousness  of  all  theological  doctrine  and  belief.  For  if  it 
be  certain  that  God  will  punish  disbelief  in  doctrines  es- 
sential to  salvation,  and  certain  that  any  church  possesses 
the  knowledge  what  those  doctrines  are,  does  it  not  follow 
that  a  man  who  goes  about  persuading  people  to  reject 
those  doctrines  should  be  treated  as  we  treat  a  mad  dojr 
loose  in  the  streets  of  a  city  ?"  Thus  fools,  when  they 
are  young  enough,  rush  in  where  Mnse  men  fear  to  tread  ! 

I  had  entirely  forgotten,  but  find  from  my  diary  that  it 
was  our  pleasant  friend  but  indifferent  preacher,  Dr.  Dib- 
din,  who  on  the  11th  of  Februarj^  1839,  married  my  sis- 
ter, Cecilia,  to  Mr.,  now  Sir  John,  Tilley. 

It  appears  that  I  was  not  incapable  of  appreciating  a 
good  sermon  when  I  heard  one,  for  I  read  of  the  impres- 
sion produced  upon  me  by  an  "admirable  sermon  preached 
by  Mr.  Smith"  (it  must  have  been  Sydney,  I  take  it)  in 
the  Temple  Church.  The  preacher  quoted  largely  from 
Jeremy  Taylor,  "giving  the  passages  with  an  excellence 
of  enunciation  and  expression  which  impressed  them  on 
my  mind  in  a  manner  which  will  not  allow  me  to  forget 
them."     Alack  !  I  have  forgotten  every  word  of  them  ! 

I  remember,  however,  perfectly  well,  without  any  refer- 
ence to  my  diary,  hearing — it  must  have  been  much  about 
the  same  time — Sydney  Smith  preach  a  sermon  at  St. 
Paul's,  which  much  impressed  me.  He  took  for  his  text, 
"  Knowledge  and  wisdom  shall  be  the  stability  of  thy 
times"  (I  Avrite  from  memory — the  memory  of  half  a  cen- 
tury ago — but  I  think  the  words  ran  thus).  Of  course  the 
gist  of  his  discourse  may  be  readily  imagined.  But  the 
manner  of  the  preacher  remains  more  vividly  present  to 
my  mind  than  his  words.  He  s])oke  with  extreme  rapid- 
ity, and  had  the  special  gift  of  combining  extreme  rapidity 


IX   THE   NORTH   OF   ENGLAND.  279 

of  utterance  with  very  perfect  clearness.  His  manner,  I 
remember  thinking,  was  unlike  any  that  I  had  ever  wit- 
nessecl  in  the  pulpit,  and  appeared  to  me  to  resemble 
rather  that  of  a  very  earnest  speaker  at  the  hustings  than 
the  usual  pulpit  style.  Ilis  sentences  seemed  to  run  down- 
hill, with  continually  increasing  speed  till  they  came  to  a 
full  stop  at  the  bottom.  It  was,  I  think,  the  only  sermon 
I  ever  heard  which  I  wished  longer.  lie  carried  me  with 
him  completely,  for  the  century  was  in  those  days,  like  me, 
young.  But  if  I  were  to  hear  a  similarly  fervid  discourse 
now  on  the  same  subject,  I  should  surely  desire  some 
clearer  setting  forth  of  the  difference  between  "knowl- 
edge" and  "  wisdom." 

It  was  about  this  time,  i.  e.,  in  the  year  1S39,  that  my 
mother,  who  had  been  led,  by  I  forget  what  special  cir- 
cumstances, to  take  a  great  interest  in  the  then  hoped-for 
factory  legislation,  and  in  Lord  Shaftesbury's  efforts  in 
that  direction,  determined  to  write  a  novel  on  the  subject 
with  the  hope  of  doing  something  towards  attracting  the 
public  mind  to  the  question,  and  to  visit  Lancashire  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  accurate  information  and  local 
details. 

The  novel  was  written,  published  in  tlie  then  newly- 
invented  fashion  of  monthly  iiuml)ers,  and  called  "Michael 
Armstrong."  The  publisher,  Mr.  Colburn,  paid  a  long 
price  for  it,  and  did  not  complain  of  the  result,  liut  it 
never  became  one  of  the  more  popular  among  my  mother's 
novels,  sharing,  I  sujtpose,  the  fate  of  most  novils  written 
for  some  purpose  other  than  that  of  amusing  their  readers. 
Novel  readers  are  exceedingly  (piick  to  smell  the  rliul»aib 
under  the  jam  in  the  dose  offered  to  them,  and  set  them- 
selves against  the  undesired  preachment  as  obstinately  as 
the  naughtiest  little  l)()y  wIkj  ever  refused  to  be  physicked 
with  Hastiness  for  his  good. 

^ly  mother  neglected  no  means  of  making  the  facts 
stated  in  her  book  authentic  mikI  accurate,  ami  tiie  i/i/.'^e  en 
scene  of  her  story  graphic  and  tnitlilul.  Of  course  I  was 
the  companion  of  licr  journey,  and  was  more  or  less  useful 
to  her  in  searching  for  and  collecting  facts  in  some  jilaces 
where  it  would  have  been  diflicult  for  her  to  look  for  them. 


280  WHAT    1   KKMEMBER. 

AVe  carried  with  us  a  miniber  of  introductions  from  Lord 
Shaftesbury  to  a  rather  strange  assortment  of  persons, 
whom  his  lordship  had  found  useful  both  as  collectors  of 
trustwortliy  information  and  energetic  agitators  in  favor 
of  legislation. 

The  following  letter  from  the  Eai'l  of  Shaftesbury,  then 
Lord  Ashley,  to  my  mother  on  the  subject,  is  illustrative 
of  the  strong  interest  he  took  in  the  matter,  and  of  the 
means  which  he  thought  necessary  for  obtaining  informa- 
tion respecting  it : 

"  Madam, — The  letters  to  Macclesfield  and  Manchester  shall  be  sent  by 
this  evening's  post.  On  your  arrival  at  Macclesfield  be  so  kind  as  to  ask 
for  Reuben  Bullock,  of  Roe  Street,  and  at  Manchester  for  John  Doherty, 
a  small  bookseller  of  Hyde's  Cross  in  the  town.  Tliey  will  show  you  the 
secrets  of  the  place,  as  they  showed  them  to  me. 

"Mr.  Wood  himself  is  not  now  resident  in  Bradford,  he  is  at  present  in 
Hampshire ;  but  his  partner,  Mr.  Walker,  carries  out  all  his  plans  with  the 
utmost  energy.  I  will  write  to  him  to-night.  The  firm  is  known  by  the 
name  of '  Wood  &  Walker.'  Mr.  \Vood  is  a  person  whom  you  may  easily 
see  in  London  on  your  return  to  town.  With  every  good  wish  and  prayer 
for  your  success,  I  remain  your  very  obedient  servant, 

"  Ashley. 

"P.S. — The  Quarterly  Review  of  December,  1836,  contains  an  article  on 
the  factory  system  which  would  greatly  assist  by  the  references  to  the  evi- 
dence before  Committee,  etc.,  etc." 

It  is  useless  here  and  now  to  say  anything  of  the  hor- 
rors of  uncivilized  savagery  and  hopeless  abject  misery 
M-hich  we  witnessed.  They  are  painted  in  my  mother's 
book,  and  should  any  reader  ever  refer  to  those  pages  for 
a  picture  of  the  state  of  things  among  the  factory  hands  at 
that  time,  he  may  take  with  him  my  testimony  to  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  exaggeration  in  the  outlines  of  the  pict- 
ure given.  What  we  are  there  described  to  have  seen,  we 
saw. 

And  let  doctrinaire  economists  preach  as  they  will,  and 
Radical  socialists  abuse  a  measure  which  helps  to  take 
from  them  the  fulcrum  of  the  levers  that  are  to  upset  the 
whole  existing  framework  of  society,  it  is  impossible  for 
one  who  did  see  those  sights,  and  who  has  visited  the 
same  localities  in  later  days,  not  to  bless  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury's   memory,  ay,  and  the  memory,  if  they  have  left 


IN   THE   NORTH   OF   ENGLAND.  281 

any,  of  the   humble    assistants    whose   persistent   efforts 
helped  on  the  work. 

But  the  little  knot  of  apostles  to  whom  Lord  Shaftesbury's 
letters  introduced  us,  and  into  Avhose  intimate  conciliahules 
his  recommendations  caused  our  admittance,  was  to  ray 
mother,  and  yet  more  to  me,  to  whom  the  main  social  part 
of  the  business  naturally  fell,  a  singularly  new  and  strange 
one.  They  were  all,  or  nearly  all  of  them,  men  a  little 
raised  above  the  position  of  the  factory  hands,  to  the 
righting  of  whose  wrongs  they  devoted  their  lives.  They 
had  been  at  some  period  of  their  lives,  in  almost  every 
case,  factory  workers  themselves,  but  had  by  various  cir- 
cumstances, native  talent,  industry  and  energy,  or  favor- 
ing fortune — more  likely  by  all  together — managed  to 
raise  themselves  out  of  the  slough  of  despond  in  which 
their  fellows  were  overwhelmed.  One,  I  remember,  a  Mr. 
Doherty,  a  very  small  bookseller,  to  Avhom  we  were  spe- 
cially recommended  by  Lord  Shaftesbury.  He  was  an 
Irishman,  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  a  furious  Radical,  but  a 
veri/  clever  man.  He  was  thoroughly  acquainted  with  all 
that  had  been  done,  all  that  it  was  hoped  to  do,  and  with 
all  the  means  that  were  being  taken  for  the  advancement 
of  those  hopes,  over  the  entire  district. 

He  came  and  dined  Avith  us  at  our  hotel,  but  it  was,  I 
remember,  with  much  difficulty  that  we  persuaded  him  to 
do  s<j,  and  when  at  table  his  excitement  in  talking  was  so 
great  and  continuous  that  he  could  eat  next  to  nothing. 

I  remember,  too,  a  Rev.  ]Mr.  Hull,  to  whom  he  intro- 
duced us  subsequently  at  Bradford.  We  ])assed  the 
evening  witli  this  gentleman  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Wood, 
of  the  lirm  <>f  Walker  tt  Wootl,  to  whom  also  we  had  let- 
ters from  Lord  Shaftesbury.  He,  like  our  host,  was  an 
ardent  advocate  of  the  ten  hours'  l)ill,  but,  unlike  him.  had 
very  little  ho])e  of  legislative  interferenci-.  ^lessrs.  Walk- 
er &,  Wood  employed  tlirt-e  thousand  haiuls.  At  a  sacrifice 
of  some  thousands  per  annum,  they  worked  tlu-ir  hands  an 
hour  less  than  any  •>f  their  neighbors,  which  left  ilic  hours, 
as  Mr.  Wood  strongly  declared,  still  too  long.  Those  gen- 
tlemen had  built  and  endowed  a  churcli  ami  a  school  for 
tlieir  hands,  and  evervthing  was  done  ijj  their  mil!  which 


282  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

could  hnmanizo  and  improve  the  lot  of  the  men,  women, 
and  children.  Mr.  Bull,  who  was  to  he  the  incumbent  of 
the  new  church,  then  not  quite  finished,  was  far  less  hope- 
ful than  his  patron.  He  told  me  that  he  looked  forward 
to  some  tremendous  popular  outbreak,  and  should  not  be 
surprised  any  night  to  hear  that  every  mill  in  Bradford 
was  in  flames. 

But  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  individual  with  whom 
this  Lancashire  journey  brought  us  into  contact  was  a  Mr. 
Oastler.  lie  was  the  Dantou  of  the  movement.  lie  would 
have  been  a  remarkable  man  in  any  position  or  calling  in 
life.  He  was  a  very  large  and  powerfully  framed  man, 
over  six  feet  in  height,  and  proportionally  large  of  limb 
and  shoulder.  He  would,  perhaps,  hardly  have  been  said 
to  be  a  handsome  man.  His  face  was  coarse,  and,  in  parts 
of  it,  heavy.  But  he  had  a  most  commanding  jjrcsence, 
and  he  was  withal  a  picturesque — if  it  be  not  more  ac- 
curate to  say  a  statuesque — figure.  Some  of  the  features, 
too,  were  good.  He  had  a  very  keen  and  intelligent  blue 
eye,  a  mass  of  iron -gray  hair,  lips,  the  scornful  curl  of 
Avhich  was  terrible,  and  with  all  this  a  voice  stentorian  in 
its  power,  and  yet  flexible,  with  a  flow  of  language  rapid 
and  abundant  as  the  flow  of  a  great  river,  and  as  unstem- 
mable — the  very  heau  ideal  of  a  mob  orator, 

"In  the  evening,"  says  my  diary,  "  we  drove  out  to 
Stayley  Bridge  to  hear  the  preaching  of  Stephens,  the 
man  who  has  become  the  subject  of  so  much  newspaper 
celebrity."  (Does  any  one  remember  w- ho  he  was?)  "We 
reached  a  miserable  little  chapel,  filled  to  suffocation,  and 
besieged  by  crowds  around  the  doors.  We  entered  through 
the  vestry  with  great  ditliculty,  and  only  so  by  the  courtesy 
of  sundry  persons  who  relinquished  their  places  on  Do- 
herty's  representing  to  them  that  we  were  strangers  from 
a  distance  and  friends  to  the  cause.  Presently  Stephens 
arrived,  and  a  man  who  had  been  ranting  in  the  pulpit, 
merely,  as  it  seemed,  to  occupy  the  })eople  till  he  should 
come,  immediately  yielded  his  place  to  him.  Stephens 
spoke  well,  and  said  some  telling  words  in  that  place,  of 
the  cruel  and  relentless  march  of  the  great  Juggernaut, 
Gold.     But  I  did  not  hear  anything  w^hich  seemed  to  me 


IN    THE   NORTH   OK   ENGLAND.  283 

to  justify  bis  great  reputation.  Really  the  most  stniking 
part  of  the  performance,  and  that  which  I  thought  seemed 
to  move  the  people  most,  was  Oastler's  mounting  the  pul- 
pit and  giving  out  the  verses  of  a  hymn,  one  by  one,  which 
the  congregation  sang  after  him."  So  says  my  diary. 
Him  I  remember  well,  though  Stepher»s  not  at  all.  I  re- 
member, too,  the  pleasure  with  Avhicli  I  listened  to  his 
really  fine  delivery  of  the  lines  ;  his  pronunciation  of  the 
words  was  not  incorrect,  and  when  he  spoke,  as  I  heard 
him  on  sundry  subsequent  occasions,  his  language,  though 
emphasized  rather,  as  it  seemed,  than  marred  by  a  certain 
roughness  of  Lancashire  accent,  was  not  that  of  an  uncul- 
tivated man.  Yes  !  Oastler,  the  King  of  Lancashire,  as 
the  people  liked  to  call  him,  was  certainly  a  man  of  power, 
and  an  advocate  whom  few  platform  orators  would  have 
cared  to  meet  as  an  adversary. 

When  my  mother's  notes  for  her  projected  novel  were 
completed  we  thought  that  before  turning  our  faces  south- 
ward we  would  pay  a  flying  visit  to  the  lake  district, 
which  was  new  ground  to  both  of  us.  I  remember  well 
my  intense  delight  at  my  first  introduction  to  mountains 
worthy  of  the  name.  But  I  mean  to  mention  here  two 
only  of  my  reniinisccnces  of  that  first  visit  to  lake-land. 

The  first  of  these  concerns  an  excursion  on  Windermere 
with  Captain  Hamilton,  the  author  of  "Cyril  Thornton," 
which  had  at  that  time  made  its  mark.  He  had  recently 
received  a  new  boat,  which  had  been  built  for  him  in  Nor- 
way. He  expected  great  performances  from  her,  and  as 
tht-re  was  a  nice  fresh  wind  idly  curling  (he  surface  of  the 
lake,  be  invited  us  to  come  out  with  him  and  try  her,  and 
in  a  minute  or  two  we  were  speeding  merrily  before  the 
breeze  towards  the  ojiposite  shore.  ]iut  about  the  middle 
of  the  lake  we  found  the  water  a  good  deal  rougher,  and 
the  wind  began  to  increase  notably.  Hamilton  held  the 
tiller,  and  not  liking  to  make  fast  liie  halyard  of  the  sail, 
gave  me  the  rope  to  hold,  with  instructions  to  liold  on  till 
further  orders.  II<'  was  a  perfect  master  of  the  business 
in  hand,  and  so  was  the  new  boat  a  ^xTfect  mistress  of  lier 
business,  l)ut  this  did  not  prevent  us  from  getting  thnrough- 
Iv  <lucked.    .My  attention  was  sulliciently  occupied  in  i)bey- 


284  AVIIAT    I   REMEMliEK. 

inc:  mv  orders,  and  kecjiing  my  eye  on  him  in  expectation 
of  frcsli  ones.  Tl.e  wind  meanwhile  increased  from  minute 
to  minute,  and  I  couKl  not  iielp  perceiving  that  Hamilton, 
despite  his  eheerj^  laughter,  was  becoming  a  little  anxious. 
AVe  got  back,  however,  to  the  shore  we  had  left  after 
a  good  buffeting,  and  in  the  condition  of  drowned  rats. 
My  mother  was  helped  out  of  the  boat,  and  while  she  was 
making  her  way  up  the  bank,  and  I  was  helping  him  to 
make  the  boat  secure,  I  said,  "  Well  !  the  new  boat  has 
done  bravely  !"  "  Between  you  and  me,  my  dear  fellow,''' 
said  he,  as  he  laid  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  with  a  grip 
that  I  think  must  have  left  his  thumb-niark  on  the  skin, 
"  if  the  boat  had  not  behaved  better  than  any  boat  of  her 
class  that  I  ever  saw,  there  would  have  been  a  considera- 
ble probability  of  our  being  dined  on  by  the  fishes,  in- 
stead of  dining  together,  as  I  hope  we  are  going  to  do. 
I  have  been  blaming  myself  for  taking  your  mother  out ; 
but  the  truth  is  that  on  these  lakes  it  is  really  impossible 
to  tell  for  half  an  hour  what  the  next  half-hour  may  bring 
forth." 

The  one  other  incident  of  our  visit  to  Like-land  which  I 
■will  record  was  our  visit  to  Wordsworth. 

For  my  part  I  managed  to  incur  liis  displeasure  while 
yet  on  the  threshold  of  his  house.  We  were  entering  it 
together,  Avhen,  observing  a  very  fine  bay-tree  by  the  door- 
side,  I  unfortunately  expressed  surprise  at  its  luxuriance 
in  such  a  position.  "  \Vhy  should  you  be  surprised?"  he 
asked,  suddenly  turning  upon  me  with  much  displeasure 
in  his  manner.  Not  a  little  disconcerted,  I  hesitatingly  an- 
swered that  I  had  imagined  the  bay-tree  required  more 
and  greater  warmth  of  sunshine  than  it  could  find  there. 
"Pooh  !"  said  he,  much  olfended  at  the  slight  cast  on  his 
beloved  locality,  "what  has  sunshine  got  to  do  with  it?" 

I  had  not  the  readiness  to  reply,  that  in  truth  the  world 
had  abundance  of  testimony  that  the  bay  could  flourish 
in  those  latitudes.  But  I  think  had  I  done  so,  it  might 
have  made  my  peace — for  the  remainder  of  that  evening's 
experiences  led  me  to  imagine  that  the  great  poet  was  not 
insensible  to  incense  from  very  small  and  humble  wor- 
shippers. 


IN   THE   NORTH   OF  ENGLAND.  285 

The  evening,  I  think  I  may  say  the  entire  evening,  Avas 
occupied  by  a  monologue  addressed  by  the  poet  to  my 
mother,  who  was,  of  course,  extremely  well  pleased  to  lis- 
ten to  it.  I  was  cliiettv  occupied  in  talkino:  to  mv  old 
school-fellow,  Herbert  Hill,  Southey's  nephew,  who  also 
passed  the  evening  there,  and  with  whom  I  had  a  delight- 
ful walk  the  next  day.  But  I  did  listen  with  much  pleas- 
ure when  Worilsworth  recited  his  own  lines  descriptive  of 
Little  Langdale.  He  gave  them  really  exquisitely.  But 
his  manner  in  conversation  was  not  impressive.  He  sat 
continuously  looking  down  with  a  green  shade  over  his 
eyes  even  though  it  was  twilight  ;  and  his  mode  of  speech 
and  delivery  suggested  to  me  the  epithet  ''maundering," 
thouf^h  I  was  ashamed  of  mvself  for  the  thouirht  with  refer- 
ence  to  such  a  man.  As  we  came  away  I  cross-examined 
my  mother  much  as  to  the  subjects  of  his  talk.  Slie  said  it 
had  been  all  about  himself  and  his  works,  and  that  she  had 
been  interested.  But  I  could  not  extract  from  her  a  word 
that  had  passed  worth  recording. 

I  do  not  think  that  he  was  [lopular  with  his  neighbors 
generally.  Tlicre  were  stories  current,  at  Lowther  among 
other  places,  which  imputed  to  hini  a  tendency  to  outstay 
his  welcome  when  invited  to  visit  in  a  house.  I  suspect 
there  was  a  little  bit  of  a  feud  between  him  and  my  broth- 
er-in-law, IMr.  Tilley,  who  was  the  post  -otlice  surveyor  of 
the  district.  W(jrclsworth  as  receiver  of  taxes,  or  issuer 
of  licenses,  or  whatever  it  was,  would  have  increased  the 
profits  of  liis  i)lace  if  the  mail-coach  had  jiaid  its  dues, 
whether  for  taxes  or  license,  at  his  end  of  the  journey  in- 
stead of  at  Kendal,  as  had  been  the  jjractice.  Ihit,  of 
course,  any  such  change  wouhl  have  been  .is  nuuh  to  the 
detriment  of  the  man  at  Kendal  as  to  Wonlsworth's  ad- 
vantage. And  my  brother-in-hiw,  thinking  such  a  change 
unjust,  wouM  not  pi-rmit  it. 

I  cannot  sav  that,  mi  the  whole,  the  impression  made  on 
me  by  the  poet  on  that  occasion  (always  with  the  notable 
exception  of  his  recital  (»f  his  own  poetry)  was  ;i  pleasant 
one.  There  was  Homething  in  the  manner  in  which  he  al- 
nutst  perfiini'forily,  as  it  seemed,  uttered  his  long  mono- 
logue, that   siigg»-sted  the  idea  of  the  ])erformance  of   a 


286  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

part  got  up  to  order,  and  repeated  without  much  modifi- 
cation as  often  as  lion-hunters,  duly  authorized  for  the 
sport  in  those  localities,  might  call  upon  him  for  it.  I  dare 
say  the  case  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  hero  and  the  valet, 
but  such  was  my  impression. 


CHAPTER   XXL 

JOURXEY    IN    BRITTAXY. 

I  HAD  been  for  some  time  past,  as  has  been  said,  trying 
my  hand,  not  without  success,  at  a  great  variety  of  arti- 
cles in  all  sorts  of  reviews,  magazines,  and  newspapers. 
I  already  considered  m3^self  a  member  of  the  guild  of  pro- 
fessional writers.  I  had  done  much  business  witli  pub- 
lishers on  behalf  of  my  mother,  and  some  for  other  per- 
sons, and  talked  glibly  of  copyrights,  editions,  and  tokens. 

(I  fancy,  by-the-bye,  that  the  latter  term  has  somewhat 
fallen  out  of  use  in  these  latter  days,  whether  from  any 
change  of  the  methods  used  by  printers  or  publishers  I  do 
not  know.  But  it  strikes  me  that  many  youngsters,  even 
of  the  scribbling  tribe,  may  not  know  that  the  phrase  "  a 
token  "  had  no  connection  whatever  with  signs  and  won- 
ders of  any  sort,  but  simply  meant  two  hundred  and  fifty 
copies.) 

And  being  thus  equii)ped,  I  began  to  think  that  it  was 
time  that  I  should  attempt  a  hook.  During  a  previous 
hurried  scamper  in  Normandy  I  had  just  a  glimpse  of 
Brittany,  which  greatly  excited  my  desire  to  see  more  of 
it.  So  I  pitched  on  a  tour  in  Hiittany  as  the  subject  of 
my  first  attenij»t. 

Those  were  liappy  days,  when  all  tlie  habitable  globe 
had  not  ])een  run  over  by  thousands  of  tourists,  hundreds 
of  whom  are  desirous  of  describing  their  doings  in  |»rint 
— ^not  but  that  the  notion,  whether  a  publisher's  or  writ- 
er's notion,  that  new  ground  is  needed  Un-  the  j)roducti(>n 
of  a  good  and  amusing  book  of  travels,  is  other  than  a 
great  mistake.  I  forget  what  ])roi)osing  author  it  was, 
who  in  answer  to  a  j»ublisl)er  urLjing  the  fact  that  "  a 
do/.en  writers  liave  told  us  all  about  so  and  so,"  replied, 
"But  /have  not  told  you  what  /have  seen  and  thought 
about   it."     But  if  I  had  l»een  the  puMisher  1  should  at 


288  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

once  have  asked  to  see  his  MS.  The  days  when  a  capital 
book  may  be  written  on  a  voyage  autour  de  ma  chamhre 
are  as  present  as  ever  they  were.  And  "  A  Summer  After- 
noon's Walk  to  Ilighgate"  might  be  the  subject  of  a  de- 
lightful book  if  only  the  writer  were  the  riglit  man. 

]5rittany,  however,  really  was  in  those  days  to  a  great 
extent  fresh  ground,  and  the  strangely  secluded  circum- 
stances of  its  population  olTered  much  tempting  material 
to  the  book-making  tourist.  All  this  is  now  at  an  end  ; 
not  so  much  because  the  country  has  been  the  subject  of 
sundry  good  books  of  travel,  as  because  the  people  and 
their  mode  of  life,  the  country  and  its  specialties,  have  all 
been  utterly  changed  by  the  pleasant,  convenient,  indis- 
pensable, abominable  railway,  which  in  its  merciless,  utc- 
sistible  tramp  across  the  world  crushes  into  a  dead  level 
of  uninteresting  monotony  so  many  varieties  of  character, 
manners,  and  peculiarities.  And  thus  "  the  individual 
withers,  and  the  world  is  more  and  more  !"  But  is  the 
world  more  and  more  in  ^wy  sense  that  can  be  admit- 
ted to  be  desirable,  in  view  of  the  eternity  of  that  same 
individual. 

As  for  the  Bretons,  the  individual  has  withered  to  that 
extent  that  he  now  wears  trousers  instead  of  breeches, 
while  his  world  has  become  more  and  more  assimilated  to 
that  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  with  the  result  of  losing 
all  those  really  very  notable  and  stiif  and  sturdy  virtues 
which  differentiated  the  Breton  peasant,  when  I  first  knew 
him,  while  it  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  say  what  it  has 
gaint'd.  At  all  events  the  progress  which  can  be  stated  is 
mainly  to  be  stated  in  negatives.  The  Breton,  as  I  first 
knew  him,  believed  in  all  sorts  of  superstitious  rubbish. 
He  now  believes  in  nothing  at  all.  lie  was  disposed  to 
honor  and  respect  God,  and  his  priest,  and  his  seigneur 
perhaps  somewhat  too  indisfriminately.  Now  he  neither 
lionors  nor  respects  any  eailhly  or  heavenly  thing.  These, 
at  least,  were  the  observations  which  a  second,  or,  rather, 
third  visit  to  the  country  a  few  years  ago  suggested  to 
me,  mainly,  it  is  true,  as  regards  the  urban  population. 
And  without  going  into  any  of  the  deeper  matters  whicli 
such  changes  suggest  to  one's  consideration,  there  can  be 


JOURNEY  IN  BRITTANY.  289 

no  possible  doubt  as  to  the  fact  that  the  country  and  its 
people  are  infinitely  less  interesting  than  they  -were. 

My  plans  were  soon  made,  and  I  hastened  to  lay  them 
before  Mr.  Colburn,  who  was  at  that  time  publishing  for 
my  mothei-.  The  trip  was  my  main  object,  and  I  should 
have  been  perfectly  contented  with  terms  that  paid  all  the 
expenses  of  it.  Dl  auctiusfecerunt,  and  I  came  home  from 
my  ramble  with  a  good  round  sum  in  my  pocket. 

I  was  not  greedy  of  money  in  those  days,  and  had  no 
unscriptural  liankerings  after  laying  up  treasure  upon 
earth.  All  I  wanted  was  a  sufficient  supply  for  my  un- 
ceasing expenditure  in  locomotion  and  inn  bills — the  lat- 
ter, be  it  observed,  always  on  a  most  economical  scale.  I 
was  not  a  profitable  customer;  I  took  nothing  "for  the 
good  of  the  house."  I  had  a  Gargantuesque  appetite, 
and  needed  food  of  some  sort  in  proportion  to  its  de- 
mands. I  neither  took,  or  cared  to  take,  any  wine  with 
my  dinner,  and  never  wanted  any  description  of  "  night- 
cap." As  for  accommodation  for  the  night,  anything  suf- 
ficed rae  that  gave  me  a  clean  bed  and  a  suflicient  window- 
opening  on  fresh  air,  under  such  conditions  as  made  it 
possible  for  me  to  have  it  open  all  night.  To  the  present 
day  I  cannot  sleep  to  my  liking  in  a  closed  chamber;  and 
before  now,  on  tlie  top  of  the  Righi,  have  had  my  bed 
clothes  blown  off  my  bed,  and  snow  deposited  Mhere  they 
should  have  been. 

I>ut  quo  nmsa  tendis  ?  I  was  talking  about  my  travels 
in  Brittany. 

I  do  not  tliink  my  book  was  a  bad  coiq)  iVcssai.  I  re- 
meml)er  old  Jolm  Murray  coming  o)it  to  me  into  the  front 
oflice  in  Albemarle  Street,  where  I  was  on  some  business 
f)f  my  mother's,  with  a  broad,  good-natured  smile  on  his 
face,  and  putting  into  my  hands  the  Ti}n€s  of  that  morn- 
ing, with  a  favorable  notice  of  the  book,  saying  as  Iil-  did 
so,  "There,  so  yon  have  waked  tliis  morning  to  find  your- 
self famous  I"  Aii'l,  what  was  more  to  the  purpose,  my 
publisher  was  content  with  the  result,  as  was  evidenced 
l)y  his  ofFi'ring  me  similar  terms  for  another  Itook  of  (lie 
same  description — of  whirh,  more  anon. 

As  my  volumes  on  Urittany.  publishtd  in  ls40,  are  lit- 
is 


290  WHAT  I  REMEMIJER. 

tie  likely  to  come  i;nder  the  eye  of  any  readei*  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  and  as  the  passage  I  am  about  to  quote  indicates 
accurately  enough  the  main  point  of  difference  between 
■what  the  traveller  at  that  day  saw  and  what  the  traveller 
of  the  present  day  may  see,  I  think  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
giving  it. 

"  We  had  observed  that  at  Broons  a  style  of  coiffure 
M'hich  was  new  to  us  prevailed ;  and  my  companion  wished 
to  add  a  sketch  of  it  to  his  fast-increasing  collection  of 
Breton  costumes.  With  this  view,  he  had  begun  making 
love  to  the  maid  a  little,  to  induce  her  to  do  so  much  vio- 
lence to  her  maiden  modesty  as  to  sit  to  him  for  a  few 
minutes,  when  a  far  better  opportunity  of  achieving  his 
object  presented  itself. 

"  The  landlady's  daughter,  a  very  pretty  little  girl  about 
fourteen  years  old,  was  going  to  be  confirmed,  and  had 
just  come  down-stairs  to  her  mother,  who  was  sitting  knit- 
ting in  the  salle  d  manger,  for  inspection  and  ai)proval  be- 
fore she  started.  Of  course,  upon  such  an  occasion,  the 
art  of  the  hlanchisseuse  was  taxed  to  the  iitmost.  Lace 
was  not  spared ;  and  the  most  recherche  coiffure  was 
adopted  that  the  rigorous  immutability  of  village  modes 
would  permit. 

"It  would  seem  that  the  fickleness  of  fashion  exercises 
in  constant  local  variations  that  mutability  which  is  ut- 
terly denied  to  it  in  Brittany  with  regard  to  time.  Every 
district,  almost  every  commune,  has  its  own  peculiar  'mode' 
(for  both  sexes),  which  changes  not  from  generation  to 
generation.  As  the  mothers  dress,  so  do  their  daughters, 
so  did  their  grandmothers,  and  so  will  their  granddaugh- 
ters." [But  I  reckoned,  Avhen  writing  thus,  without  the 
railroad  and  its  consequences.]  "  If  a  woman  of  one  par- 
ish marries,  or  takes  service,  or  for  any  other  cause  resides 
in  another,  she  still  retains  the  mode  of  her  native  village ; 
and  thus  carries  about  her  a  mark  Avhieh  is  to  those  among 
wliom  she  is  a  sojourner  a  well-recognized  indication  of 
the  place  whence  she  comes,  and  to  herself  a  cherished 
souvenir  of  the  home  which  sIk;  never  ceases  to  consider 
her  own  country. 

"But  though  the  form  of  the  dress  is  invariable,  and 


JOURNEY  IN   BRITTANY.  291 

every  inhabitant  of  the  commune,  from  the  wealthy  farm- 
er's wife  to  the  poorest  cottager  who  earns  her  black 
bread  by  labor  in  the  fields,  would  as  soon  think  of  adopt- 
ir\rr  male  attire  as  of  innovatnig  on  the  immemorial  mode 
diijxfi/s,  yet  the  quality  of  the  materials  allows  scope  for 
wealth  and  female  coquetry  to  show  themselves.  Thus 
the  invariable  mode  de  J3roons,  with  its  trifling  difierence 
in  form,  which  in  the  eye  of  the  inhabitants  made  it  as 
different  as  \\^\\t  from  darkness  from  the  mode  de  St. 
Juuan,  was  equally  observable  in  the  coarse  linen  coiffe 
of  the  maid,  and  the  richly  laced  and  beautifully  '  got-up ' 
head-dress  of  the  daughter  of  the  house. 

"A  very  slight  observation  of  human  nature,  imder  a 
few  only  of  its  various  ])hascs,  may  suffice  to  show  that 
the  instinct  which  prompts  a  woman  to  adorn  her  person 
to  the  best  possible  advantage  is  not  the  hothouse  growth 
of  cities,  but  a  genuine  wild-flower  of  nature.  No  high- 
born beauty  ever  more  repeatedly  or  anxiously  consulted 
her  wax-lit  Psyche  on  every  faultless  point  of  hair,  face, 
neck,  feet,  and  figure,  before  descending  to  the  carriage 
for  her  first  ball,  than  did  our  voung  Bretonne  attain  and 
again  recur  to  the  mirror,  Avhich  occupied  the  pier  be- 
tween the  two  windows  of  the  salle  d  manger,  before  sally- 
ing forth  on  the  great  occasion  (jf  her  confirmation. 

"The  dear  object  of  girlish  ambition  was  the  same  to 
both;  but  the  simplicity  of  the  X\\.\\q  pai/sanne  showed  it- 
self in  the  utter  absence  of  any  wish  to  conceal  her  anx- 
iety upon  the  subject.  Though  delighted  with  our  com- 
]>litnents  on  her  a|>pearance,  our  jircsence  by  no  means 
jjrcvented  her  from  s])ringing  uj)oii  a  chair  every  other 
minute  to  obtain  a  fuller  view  of  the  toxit  ensenihle  of  her 
figure.  Again  ami  itgain  the  moilest  kerchief  was  ar- 
raiifred  and  rcarrangeil  to  show  a  hair's-breadth  more  or 
a  hair's-brcidtli  less  of  her  )»ni\vn  l»nt  round  aii<l  taper 
throat.  Repeatedly,  before  it  could  be  finally  adjusted  to 
lier  satisfaction,  was  the  delicate  fabric  of  lu  r  cnljf'iire 
moved  with  cautious  care  and  dainty  touch  a  levtle  back- 
warder  or  a  Icitb'  forwarder  over  her  sunbiiriu'(l  brow. 

"  ^fany  were  the  jiokings  and  pinchings  of  frock  and 
apron,  the  snioothiiigs  down  before  and  twitchings  down 


292  WHAT   I   KEMEMRER. 

bcliind  of  the  not  less  anxious  mother.  Often  did  she 
retreat  to  examine  more  correctly  the  general  effect  of 
the  coxip  (Vceil,  and  as  often  return  to  rectify  some  inju- 
dicious pin  or  remodel  some  rebellious  fold.  When  all 
■was  at  length  completed,  and  the  well-i)leased  parent  had 
received  from  the  servants,  called  in  for  the  express  pur- 
pose, the  expected  tribute  of  admiration,  the  little  beauty 
took  '  L'Imitation  de  la  Vierge '  in  her  hand,  and  tripped 
across  to  a  convent  of  Soeurs  Grises  on  the  other  side 
of  the  way  to  receive  their  last  instructions  and  admoni- 
tions respecting  her  behavior  when  she  should  be  present- 
ed to  the  bishop,  while  her  mother  screamed  after  her  not 
to  forget  to  pull  up  her  frock  when  she  knelt  down, 

"All  the  time  employed  in  this  little  revision  of  the 
toilet  had  not  been  left  unimproved  by  my  companion, 
who  at  the  end  of  it  produced  and  showed  to  the  jn-oud 
mother  an  admirable  full-length  sketch  of  her  pretty  dar- 
ling. The  delighted  astonishment  of  the  poor  woman, 
and  her  accent,  as  she  exclaimed,  '  0,  si  c^etait  pour  muiP 
and  then  blushed  to  the  temples  at  what  she  had  said, 
were  irresistible,  and  the  good-natured  artist  Avas  fain  to 
make  her  a  present  of  the  drawing." 

My  Breton  book  ("though  I  says  it  as  shouldn't")  is 
not  a  bad  one,  especially  as  regards  the  upper  or  north- 
ern part  of  the  province.  That  which  concerns  lower 
Brittany  is  very  imperfect,  mainly,  I  take  it,  because  I 
had  already  nearly  lilled  my  destined  two  volumes  when 
I  reached  it.  I  find  there,  however,  the  following  notice 
of  the  sardine  fishery,  which  has  some  interest  at  tlie  pres- 
ent day.  Perhaps  the  majority  of  the  thousands  of  Eng- 
lish people  who  nowadays  have  "  sardines"  on  their  break- 
fast-table every  morning,  are  not  aware  that  the  contents 
of  a  very  large  number  of  the  little  tin  boxes  which  are 
supposed  to  contain  the  delicacy  are  not  sardines  at  all. 
They  are  very  excellent  little  fishes,  but  not  sardines  ; 
for  the  enormously  increased  demand  for  them  has  out- 
stripped the  supply.  In  the  days  w'hen  the  following 
sentences  were  written,  sardines  might  certainly  be  had 
in  London  (as  what  might  not?)  at  such  shops  as  Foi-t- 


JOURNEY   IN   BRITTANY.  093 

num  &  Mason's,  but  they  were  costly,  and  by  no  means 
commonly  met  with. 

On  reaching  Donarnencz  in  the  summer  of  1839, 1  wrote  : 
"The  whole  poi)ulation  and  the  existence  of  Douarnenez 
depend  on  the  sardine  fishery.  This  delicious  little  fish, 
which  the  gourmcmds  of  Paris  so  much  delight  in,  when 
preserved  in  oil,  and  sent  to  their  capital  in  those  little 
tin  boxes  Avhose  look  must  be  familiar  to  all  icJio  have 
frequented  the  Parisian  hreaJcfast  -  houses''''  [but  is  now 
more  familiar  to  all  who  have  entered  any  grocer's  shop 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  England],  "is  still 
more  exquisite  when  eaten  fresh  on  the  shores  which  it 
frequents.  They  are  caught  in  immense  quantities  along 
the  whole  of  the  southern  coast  of  Brittany,  and  on  the 
western  shore  of  Finisterre  as  far  to  the  northward  as 
Brest,  which,  I  believe,  is  the  northern  limit  of  the  fish- 
ery. They  come  into  season  about  the  middle  of  June, 
and  are  then  sold  in  great  quantities  in  all  the  markets 
of  southern  Brittany  at  two,  three,  or  four  sous  a  dozen, 
according  to  the  abundance  of  the  fisher}--  and  the  dis- 
tance of  the  market  from  the  coast.  I  was  told  that  the 
commerce  in  sardines  along  the  coast  from  I'Orient  to 
Brest  amounted  to  three  millions  of  francs  annually." 

At  the  present  day  it  must  be  enormously  larger.  I 
remember  well  the  exceeding  plentifulness  of  the  little 
fishes — none  of  them  so  large  as  many  of  those  wliidi  ii<»\v 
iill  the  so-called  sardine  boxes — when  I  was  at  Douarnenez 
in  1839.  All  the  men,  women,  and  children  in  the  jilace 
seemed  U)  be  feasting  upon  them  all  day  long.  Plates 
with  heaps  of  them  fried  and  piled  up  crosswise,  like  tim- 
ber in  a  timber-yard,  were  to  be  seen  out-doors  ami  in- 
doors, wherever  three  or  four  peojjle  could  be  found  to- 
frcther.  All  this  was  a  thing  of  the  past  when  I  revisited 
Douanienez  in  IMOO.  Every  fi.sh  was  (hen  needed  ior  the 
(inning  Imsiness.  They  Avere  to  l)e  had,  of  course,  by  or- 
dering ami  jiaying  f<>r  tlicin,  but  very  few  indeed  were 
consutned  by  tiie  jxipulation  of  the  jdace. 

And  this  subjcft  rcininils  me  of  another  fishery  which 
I  witnessed  .1  few  UKjnths  ago — last  March — at  Sestri  di 
Ponente,   near   Genoa.     We   frecjucntly  saw    nearly  the 


294  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

whole  of  tlic  fisher  population  of  the  place  engaged  in 
dragging  from  the  water  on  to  the  sands  enormously  long 
nets,  which  had  been  previously  carried  out  by  boats  to 
a  distance  not  n^ore  I  think  than  three  or  four  hundred 
yards  from  the  shore.  From  these  nets,  when  at  last  they 
were  landed  after  an  hour  or  so  of  continual  dragging  by 
a  dozen  or  twenty  men  and  women,  were  taken  huge  bas- 
ketfuls  of  silvery  little  fish  sparkling  in  the  sun,  exactly 
like  whitebait.  I  had  always  sujtposed  that  whitebait  Avas  a 
specialty  of  the  Thames.  AVhether  an  ichthyologist  would 
have  pronounced  the  little  Scstri  fishes  to  be  the  same 
creatures  as  those  which  British  statesmen  consume  at 
Greenwich  I  cannot  say  ;  but  we  ate  them  frequently  at 
the  hotel  under  the  name  of  ginnchetti,  and  could  find  wo 
difference  between  them  and  the  Greenwich  delicacy. 
The  season  for  them  did  not  seem  to  last  above  two  or 
three  weeks.  The  fishermen  continued  to  drag  their  net, 
but  caught  other  fishes  instead  of  gianchettl.  But  while 
it  lasted  the  plenty  of  them  Avas  prodigious.  All  Sestri 
was  eating  them,  as  all  Douarnenez  ate  sardines  in  the 
old  days.  When  the  net  with  its  sparkling  cargo  was 
dragged  up  on  the  sand  and  the  contents  were  being  shov- 
elled into  huge  baskets  to  be  carried  up  into  the  town,  the 
men  would  take  up  handfuls  of  therti,  fresh,  and  I  sup- 
pose still  living,  from  the  sea,  and  plunging  their  bearded 
mouths  in  them,  eat  them  up  by  hundreds.  The  children, 
too,  irrepressibly  thronging  round  the  net,  would  pick 
from  its  meshes  the  fishes  which  adhered  to  them  and  eat 
them,  as  more  inland  rising  generations  eat  blackberries. 
I  did  not  try  the  experiment  of  eating  them  thus,  as  one 
eats  oysters,  but  I  can  testify  that,  crisply  fried,  and  eaten 
with  brown  bread  and  butter  and  lemon  juice,  they  were 
remarkably  good. 

Fortified  by  the  excellent  example  of  Sir  Francis  Doyle, 
who  in  his  extremely  amusing  volume  of  "  Reminiscences" 
fjives  as  a  reason  for  disreerardincr  the  claims  of  chronol- 
ogy  in  the  composition  of  it,  the  chances  that  he  might 
forget  the  matter  he  had  in  his  mind  if  he  did  not  book 
it  at  once,  I  have  ventured  for  the  same  reason  to  do  the 
same  thing  here.     But  I  have  an  older  authority  for  the 


JOURNEY  IN  BRITTANY.  295 

practice  in  question,  •\vliicli  Sir  Francis  is  hardly  likely 
to  have  lighted  on.  That  learned  antiquary  and  porten- 
tously voluminous  writer,  Francesco  Cancellieri,  who  was 
well  known  to  the  Roman  world  in  the  latter  years  of  the 
last,  and  the  earliest  years  of  the  present  century,  used 
to  compose  his  innumerable  works  upon  a  similar  prin- 
ciple. And  when  attacked  by  the  critics  his  contempora- 
ries, Avho,  Italian-like,  supposed  academically  correct  form 
to  be  the  most  important  thing  in  any  literary  work,  ho 
defended  himself  on  the  same  ground.  *'  If  I  don't  catch 
it  now,  I  may  probably  forget  it ;  and  is  the  world  to  be 
deprived  of  the  information  it  is  in  my  power  to  give  it 
for  the  sake  of  the  formal  correctness  of  my  work  ?" 

There  is  another  passage  in  my  book  on  Brittany  re- 
specting which  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether 
recent  travellers  can  report  that  the  state  of  things  there 
described  no  longer  exists.     I  wrote  in  1839  : 

"  Very  near  Treguier,  on  a  spot  appropriately  selected 
for  such  a  worship — the  barren  top  of  a  bleak,  unsheltered 
eminence — stands  the  chapel  of  Notre  Dame  de  la  Haine! 
Our  Lady  of  Hatred  !  The  most  fiendish  of  human  pas- 
sions is  su])posed  to  be  under  the  protection  of  Christ's 
religion  !  What  is  this  but  a  fragment  of  pure  and  un- 
mixed paganism,  unchanged  except  in  the  appellation  of 
its  idol,  which  has  remained  among  these  lineal  descen- 
dants of  tlic  Armoricau  Druids  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years  after  Christianity  has  become  the  ])rofessed  religion 
of  the  country  !  Altars,  professedly  Christian,  Avere  raised 
uixler  the  protection  of  the  Protean  Virgin,  to  the  demon 
Hatred ;  and  have  continued  to  the  pl-csent  day  to  receive 
an  unholy  worshij)  from  blinded  bigots,  Avho  hope  to  ob- 
tain Heaven's  ]»atronago  and  assistance  for  thoughts  and 
wishes  which  they  would  be  ashamed  to  luealhe  to  man. 
Three  vl >'<".><  repeated  with  devotion  at  this  odious  and  mel- 
ancholy shrine  are  tirndy  believed  to  liavi-  the  jjower  to 
cause,  within  the  year,  the  <'ertain  death  of  the  person 
airainst  whom  the  assistance  of  Our  Ladv  of  Hatred  has 
l>een  invoked.  And  it  is  said  that  even  yet  occasionally, 
in  the  silence  and  obscurity  of  the  evening,  the  figure  of 
some  assassin  worshipper  at  this  accursed  shrine  may  bo 


296  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

seen  to  glide  rapidly  from  the  solitary  spot,  where  he  has 
spoken  the  unhallowed  prayer  whose  mystic  might  has 
doomed  to  death  the  enemy  he  hates." 

I  must  tell  one  other  story  of  my  Breton  recollections, 
■which  refers  to  a  time  much  subsequent  to  the  publica- 
tion of  the  book  I  have  been  quoting.  It  was  in  1866 
that  I  revisited  Brittany  in  company  with  my  present 
wife  ;  and  one  of  the  objects  of  our  little  tour  was  the 
Finisterre  land's  end  at  the  extreme  point  of  the  hornlike 
l)romontor3'  which  forms  the  department  so  named.  We 
found  some  difficulty  in  reaching  the  spot,  not  the  least 
part  of  which  was  caused  by  the  necessity  of  threading 
our  Avay,  when  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
cliffs,  amonir  enormous  masses  of  seaw^eed  stacked  in  huge 
heaps  and  left  to  undergo  the  process  of  decay,  which 
turns  it  into  very  valuable  manure.  The  odor  Avhich  im- 
pregnated the  whole  surrounding  atmosphere  from  these 
heaps  was  decidedly  the  worst  and  most  asphyxiating  I 
ever  experienced. 

We  stood  at  last  on  the  utmost  Jinis  terrce  and  looked 
over  the  Atlantic  not  only  from  the  lighthouse,  which, 
built  three  hundred  feet  above  the  sea-level,  is  often,  we 
were  told,  drenched  by  storm-driven  spray,  but  from  va- 
rious points  of  the  tremendous  rocks  also.  They  are  tre- 
mendous, in  truth.  Tlie  scene  is  a  much  grander  one 
than  that  at  our  own  "  Land's  End,"  which  I  visited  a 
month  or  two  ago.  The  cliffs  are  much  higher,  the  rocks 
are  more  varied  in  their  forms— more  cruelly  savage-look- 
ing, and  the  cleavages  of  them  are  on  a  larger  scale.  The 
spot  was  one  of  the  'most  i)rofound  solitude,  for  we  were 
far  from  the  lighthouse,  and  the  scream  of  the  white  gulls 
as  they  started  from  their  roosting-places  on  tlie  face  of 
the  rocks,  or  returned  to  them  from  their  swirling  flights, 
were  the  only  indication  of  the  presence  of  any  creature 
liaving  the  breath  of  life. 

The  rock  ledges,  among  which  we  were  clambering, 
were  in  many  places  fearful  spots  enough — places  where 
a  stumble  or  a  divagation  of  the  foot  but  six  or  eight 
inches  from  the  narrow  path  would  have  precipitated  the 
blunderer  to  assured  and  inevitable  destruction.     "  Here," 


JOURNEY   IN   BRITTANY.  297 

said  I  to  my  wife,  as  we  stodd  side  by  side  on  one  such 
ledge,  "  would  be  the  place  for  a  husband,  who  wanted 
to  get  rid  of  his  wife,  to  accomplish  his  purpose.  Done 
in  ten  seconds  !  With  absolute  certainty  !  One  push  would 
suffice !  No  cry  of  any  more  avail  than  the  screams  of 
those  gulls !  And  no  possibility  of  the  deed  being  wit- 
nessed by  any  mortal  eye  !" 

I  had  liardly  got  the  words  out  of  my  mouth  before  our 
ears  were  startled  by  a  voice  hailing  us  ;  and  after  some 
searching  of  the  eye  we  espied  a  man  engaged  in  seeking 
sea-fowls'  eggs,  who  had  placed  himself  in  a  position  which 
I  should  have  thought  it  absolutely  impossible  to  reach, 
whence  he  had  seen  us,  as  we  now  saw  him  ! 

Let  this  then,  my  brethren,  be  a  warning  to  you  ! 
13* 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

AT    rENKlTII. AT    PAEIS. 

Returning  from  my  Breton  journey,  I  reached  my 
ni()th<>r's  liouse  in  York  Street  on  the  23d  of  July,  1839, 
and  on  the  2Gth  of  tlie^ame  month  left  London  with  her 
to  visit  my  married  sister  in  her  new  home  at  Penrith, 
where  Mr.  Tilley  had  establiab^d  himself  as  post-office 
surveyor  of  the  northern  district.'^^JIis  home  was  a  pretty 
house  situated  between  the  town  and  the  well-known  bea- 
con on  the  hill  to  the  north  of  it. 

The  first  persons  I  became  acquainted  with  in  this,  to 
me,  entirely  new  region,  were  Sir  George  Musgrave,  of 
Edenhall,  and  his  wife,  who  was  a  sister  of  Sir  James 
Graliani.  My  brother-in-law  took  me  over  to  Edenhall,  a 
lovely  walk  from  Penrith,  and  we  found  both  Sir  George 
and  Lady  Musgrave  at  home.  We — my  mother  and  I — 
had  not  at  that  time  conceived  the  idea  of  becoming  rcsi- 
dents  at  Penrith.  But  when,  subsequently,  we  were  led 
to  do  so,  we  found  extremely  pleasant  and  friendly  neigh- 
bors at  Edenhall,  and  though  not,  in  strict  chronology, 
due  in  this  place,  I  may  throw  together  my  few  reminis- 
cences of  Sir  George. 

He  was  the  heau  ideal  oi  a  country  gentleman  of  the  old 
school.  He  rarely  or  never  went  to  London — not,  as  Avas 
the  case  with  some  of  his  neighbors,  because  the  expense 
of  a  season  there  was  formidable,  for  his  estate  was  a  fine 
one,  and  he  was  a  rich  man,  living  largely  within  his  in- 
come, but  because  his  idea  was  that  a  country  gentleman's 
proper  ])lace  was  on  his  own  acres,  and  because  London 
had  no  temptations  for  him.  He  was  said  to  be  the  best 
landlord  in  the  county,  and  really  seemed  to  look  upon  all 
his  numerous  tenants  and  all  their  laborers  as  his  born 
subjects,  to  whom  protection,  kindness,  assistance,  and 
general  looking-after  were  due  in  return  for  their  fealty 


AT  PENRITII.  299 

and  loyal  attachment.  I  think  he  would  have  kicked  off 
his  land  (and  he  was  a  man  who  could  kick)  any  man  who 
talked  in  his  hearing  of  the  purely  commercial  relation- 
ship between  a  landlord  and  his  tenants.  Of  course  he 
was  adored  by  all  the  country  side.  No  doubt  the  stout 
Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  farmers  and  hinds  were 
good  and  loyal  subjects  of  Queen  Victoria,  but  for  all 
j)ractical  purposes  of  reverence  and  obedience  Musgrave 
was  king  at  Edenhall. 

Lady  Musgrave  was  a  particularly  ladylike  woman,  the 
marked  elegance  of  whose  breeding  might,  with  advantage, 
have  given  the  tone  to  many  a  London  drawing-room. 
I  have  seen  her  surrounded  by  country  neighbors,  and 
though  she  was  velut  inter  ignes  lima  jninores,  I  never  saw 
the  country  squire's  or  country  parson's  wife  who  was  not 
perfectly  happy  and  at  case  in  her  drawing-room,  while, 
unconsciously,  all  the  time  taking  a  lesson  in  good-breed- 
ing and  ladylike  manners.  She  was  thoroughly  a  help- 
meet for  her  husband  in  all  his  care  for  his  people.  I  be- 
lieve that  both  he  and  she  were  convinced,  at  the  bottom 
of  their  hearts,  that  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  con- 
stituted the  choicest,  best,  and  most  highly-civilized  part 
of  England.  And  she  was  one  of  those  of  whom  I  Avas 
thinking  when,  in  a  former  chapter,  I  spoke  of  highly- 
educated  people  whom  I  had  known  to  affect  provincialism 
of  speech.  Lady  Musgrave  always,  or,  perhaps,  it  would 
be  more  correct  to  say  generally,  called  a  cow  a  "coo;" 
and  though  I  suspect  she  would  have  left  Westmoreland 
behind  if  evil  fate  had  called  her  to  London,  on  her  own 
hillsides  she  ])referred  the  accents  of  the  native  speech. 

Sir  George  had,  or  affected  to  have,  considerable  respect 
for  all  the  little  local  superstitions  and  belii-fs  which  are  so 
]trevalent  in  that  "north  countree."  And  the  kindness 
with  which  he  welcometl  us  as  neighbors  when  we  built  a 
liousc  and  carao  to  live  there  was  shown,  despite  a  strong 
feeling  which  he  had,  or  affected  to  have,  with  regard  to 
an  inci«l(  lit  wliich  falally  marke«l  our  dChut  in  that  coun- 
try. 

Wc  bought  a  field  in  a  \  i  ry  beautiful  situation,  over- 
looking the  ruins  of  Brougham  Castle  and  the  contlueuec 


300  WUAT  I  REMEMBER. 

of  the  Eden  with  the  Lowther,  and  proceeded  to  build  a 
house  on  the  higher  part  of  it.  But  tliere  was  a  consider- 
able drop  from  the  lower  limit  of  our  ground  to  the  road 
which  skirted  the  property  and  furnished  the  only  access 
to  it.  There  was  some  difficulty,  therefore,  in  contriving 
a  tolerable  entrance  from  the  road  for  w^heel-traffic,  and  it 
was  found  necessary  to  cause  a  tiny  little  spring  that  rose 
in  the  bank  by  the  roadside  to  change  its  course  in  some 
small  degree.  The  affair  seemed  to  us  a  matter  of  infini- 
tesimal importance,  but  Sir  George  was  dismayed.  We 
had  moved,  he  said,  a  holy  well,  and  the  consequence  would 
surely  be  that  we  should  never  succeed  in  establishing  our- 
selves in  that  spot. 

And,  surely  enough,  we  never  did  so  succeed  ;  for,  after 
having  built  a  very  nice  little  house,  and  lived  in  it  one 
winter  and  half  a  summer,  we — for  I  cannot  say  that  it 
was  my  mother  more  than  I,  or  I  more  than  my  mother — 
made  up  our  minds  that  "  the  sun  yoked  his  horses  too  far 
from  Penrith  town,"  and  that  we  had  had  enough  of  it- 
Sir  George,  of  course,  when  he  heard  our  determination, 
while  he  expressed  all  possible  regret  at  losing  us  as  neigh- 
bors, said  that  he  knew  perfectly  well  that  it  must  be  so, 
from  the  time  that  we  so  recklessly  meddled  with  the  holy 
well. 

He  was  the  most  hospitable  man  in  the  world,  and  could 
never  let  many  days  pass  without  asking  us  to  dine  with 
him.  But  his  hospitality  was  of  quite  the  old-M^orld  school. 
One  day — but  that  was  after  our  journey  to  Italy,  and 
when  he  had  become  intimate  with  us — being  in  a  hurry 
to  get  back  into  the  drawing-room  to  rejoin  a  pretty  girl 
next  whom  I  had  sat  at  dinner,  I  tried  to  escape  from  the 
dining-room.  "  Come  back  !"  he  roared,  before  I  could 
get  to  the  door  ;  "  we  won't  have  any  of  your  d — d  fori- 
neering  habits  hci'e  !  Come  back  and  stick  to  your  wine, 
or  by  the  Lord  I'll  have  the  door  locked," 

lie  was,  unlike  most  men  of  his  sort,  not  very  fond  of 
riding,  but  was  a  great  walker.  He  used  to  take  the  men 
he  could  get  to  walk  witli  him  a  tramp  over  the  hill  till 
they  were  fain  to  cry  "  Hold  !  enough  !"  I^ut  thevG  I  was 
his  match. 


AT   rENRlTU.  301 

Most  of  my  readers  have  probably  heard  of  the  "  Luck 
of  Edcnhall,"  for,  besides  Longfellow's  *  well-known  poem, 
the  legend  relating  to  it  has  often  been  told  in  print.  1 
refer  to  it  here  merely  to  mention  a  curious  trait  of  char- 
acter in  Sir  George  Musgrave  in  connection  with  it.  The 
"Luck  of  Edenhall"  is  an  ancient  decorated  glass  goblet, 
which  has  belonfjed  to  the  iVIusirraves  time  out  of  mind, 
and  which  bears  on  it  the  legend : 

"  When  this  cup  shall  break  or  fall, 
Farewell  the  luck  of  Edenhall." 

After  what  I  have  written  of  Sir  George  and  the  holy 
well,  which  we  so  unfortunately  moved  from  its  proper 
site,  it  will  be  readily  imagined  that  he  attached  no  small 
importance  to  the  safe-keeping  of  the  "Luck  ;"  and,  truly, 
he  did  so.  But,  instead  of  simply  locking  it  up,  where 
he  might  feel  sure  it  could  neither  break  nor  fall,  he  would 
show  it  to  all  visitors,  and,  not  content  with  that,  would 
insi.st  on  their  taking  it  into  their  hands  to  examine  and 
handle  it.  He  maintained  that  otherwise  there  was  no 
fair  submission  to  the  test  of  luck  which  was  intended  by 
the  inscription.  It  would  have  been  mere  cowardly  pre- 
varication to  lock  it  away  \inder  circumstances  which  took 
the  matter  out  of  the  dominion  of  "luck"  altogether.  I 
wonder  that,  under  such  circumstances,  it  has  not  fallen, 
for  the  nervous  trepidation  of  the  folks  who  were  made 
to  liandle  it  may  be  imagined. 

I  made  another  friend  at  Penrith  in  the  ])erson  of  a  man 
as  strongly  contrasted  with  Sir  George  Musgrave  as  two 
north-country  P^nglishmen  could  well  be.  This  was  a  Dr. 
Nicholson,  who  has  died  within  the  last  few  months,  to 
my  great  regret,  for  I  had  promised  myself  the  pleas- 
ure of  taking  him  by  the  hand  yet  once  again  before 
starting  on  the  journey  on  Avhich  we  may  or  may  not 
meet.  He  was  my  senior  by  a  few  years,  but  not  by 
many.     Nicholson  was  a  man  of  very  extensive  reading 

•  Subseiiuonlly  to  the  publication  of  his  poem  Muspnivc  asked  Lonf^fel- 
low  to  dine  at  Edenhall,  and  "picked  a  crow"  with  him  on  the  conclusion 
of  the  poem,  whidi  represents  the  "  Luck  "  to  li;ivc  been  i)roken,  which 
Sir  (Jeorne  considered  a  liijjht  of  imaginalion  quite  transcending  nil  per- 
misaibic  (KKtioal  liocnsc. 


302  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

and  of  profound  Biblical  learning.  It  may  be  deemed 
surprising  by  others,  as  it  Avas  and  is  to  me,  that  such  a  man 
should  liave  been  an  earnest  and  thoroughly  convinced 
Swedenborgian  ;  but  such  was  the  case.  And  I  can  con- 
scientiously give  this  testimony  to  the  excellence  of  that 
creed — that  it  produced  in  the  person  of  its  learned  north- 
country  disciple  at  least  one  truly  good  and  amiable  man. 
Dr.  Nicholson  was  emphatically  such  in  all  the  relations 
of  life.  lie  was  the  good  and  loving  husband  of  a  very 
charming  wife,  the  unremittingly  careful  and  affectionate 
father  of  a  large  family,  a  delightful  host  at  his  own  table, 
and  an  excellent  and  instructive  companion  over  a  cigar 
(hardly  correctly  alluded  to  in  the  singular  number  !),  and 
a  most  Jucundus  comes  in  a  tramp  over  the  hills. 

Amusing  to  me  still  is  the  contrast  between  those  Cum- 
berland walks  with  Sir  George  and  my  ramblings  over  the 
same  or  neai'ly  the  same  ground  with  the  meditative  Swe- 
denborgian  doctor ;  the  first  always  pushing  ahead  as  if 
shouldering  along  a  victorious  path  through  life,  knowing 
the  history  of  every  foot  of  ground  he  })assed  over,  inter- 
ested in  every  detail  of  it,  and  Avith  an  air  of  continually 
saying  "  Ila !  ha !"  among  the  breezy  trumpets  of  those 
hills,  like  the  scriptural  war-horse  ;  the  second  with  his 
gaze  very  imperfectly  turned  outward,  but  very  fruitfully 
turned  inward,  frequently  pausing,  with  argumentative 
finger  laid  on  his  companion's  breast,  and  smile,  half  satir- 
ical, half  kindly,  as  the  flow  of  discourse  revealed  theolog- 
ical lacunce  in  ray  acquirements,  which,  I  fear,  irreparably 
and  most  unfairly  injured  the  Regius  professor  of  divinity 
in  the  mind  of  the  German  graduate.  For  Nicholson  was 
a  theological  "doctor"  by  virtue  of  a  degree  from  I  for- 
get what  German  university,  and  had  a  low  estimate,  per- 
haps more  justified  at  that  day  than  it  would  be  now,  of 
the  extent  and  calibre  of  Oxford  theological  learning.  He 
was  himself  a  disciple  and  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Ewald, 
a  very  learned  Hebraist,  and  an  unflagging  student, 

I  was  more  capable  of  api)reciating  at  its  due  value  the 
extent  and  accuracy  of  his  knowledge  upon  another  sub- 
ject— a  leg  of  mutton !  It  Tiiay  be  a  mere  coincidence, 
but,  certainly,  the  most  learned  Hebraist  it  was  ever  my 


AT   PENRITH.  303 

lot  to  know  was  also  the  best  and  most  satisfactory  carver 
of  a  leg  of  mutton. 

Xobody  knows  anything  about  mutton  in  these  da^vs, 
for  the  very  sufficient  reason  that  there  is  no  mutton  worth 
knowing  anything  about.  Scientific  breeding  has  improved 
it  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  immature  meat  is  killed 
at  two  years  old,  and  only  we  few  survivors  of  a  former 
generation  know  how  little  like  it  is  to  the  mutton  of  former 
days.  The  Monmouthshire  farmers  told  me  the  other  clay 
that  they  could  not  keep  Welsh  sheep  of  pure  breed,  be- 
cause nothing  under  an  eight-foot  park  paling  would  con- 
fine them.  Just  as  if  they  did  not  jump  in  the  days  when 
I  jumped  too  !  15elieve  me,  my  young  friends,  that  George 
the  Third  knew  what  he  was  talking  about  (as  upon  cer- 
tain other  occasions)  when  he  said  that  very  little  venison 
was  equal  to  a  haunch  of  four-year-old  mutton.  And  the 
gravy  ! — chocolate-colored,  not  pink,  my  innocent  young 
fricmls.     Ichabod  !  Ichabod  ! 

My  uncle,  too,  Mv.  Partington — who  married  my  fa- 
ther's sister,  and  lived  many  years  chairman  of  quarter 
sessions  at  Offham,  among  the  South  Downs,  near  Lewes 
— was  a  man  who  understood  mutton.  A  little  silver 
saucepan  was  ])laced  l)y  his  side  Avhen  the  leg  of  mut- 
ton, or  sometimes  two,  about  as  big  as  fine  fowls,  were 
placed  in  one  dish  before  him.  Then,  after  the  mutton 
had  been  cut,  the  abundantly  ilowing  gravy  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  saucepan,  a  couple  of  glasses  of  tawny  old  port 
and  a  fjHdntion  si/Jf'.  of  currant  j»'lly  and  cayenne  were 
added,  the  whole  was  warmed  in  tlie  dining-room,  and 
then — we  ate  mutton,  as  I  shall  never  cat  it  again  in  this 
world. 

Well  !  rcveiiir  d  nos  moutoi^s  we  never,  never  shall  ! 
So  we  must,  alas  !  <lo  tlu-  reverse  in  returning  to  my  I'eii- 
rith  reminiscences. 

I  remember  specially  an  excellent  old  fellow  and  very 
friendly  neighbor,  Colonel  Macleod,  a  bachelor,  who  hav- 
ing fallen  in  love  with  a  very  beautiful  spot,  in  the  valley 
of  the  T..owther,  built  an  ugly  brick  house,  three  stories 
high,  because,  as  he  said,  he  was  so  greedy  of  the  view, 
forgetful,  apparently,  that  lie  was  providing  it  mainly  for 


304  WHAT   I  KEMKMHEK. 

Lis  maid-servants.  Then  tlicvc  was  the  old  maiden  lady, 
Avith  a  name  that  might  have  been  found  in  north-country 
annals  at  almost  any  date  during  the  last  seven  hundred 
years,  Avho  mildly  and  maternally  corrected  my  sister 
at  table  for  speaking  of  vol-au-vent,  telling  her  that  the 
correct  expression  was  voulez-vous !  My  sister  always 
adopted  the  old  lady's  correction  in  future,  at  least  when 
addressing  her. 

Then  there  were  two  pretty  girls,  Margaret  and  Char- 
lotte Story,  the  nieces  of  old  De  Whelpdale,  the  lord  of 
the  manor.  I  think  he  and  Mrs.  De  Whelpdale  never  left 
their  room,  for  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  seen  either 
of  them;  nor  do  I  remember  that  I  at  all  resented  their 
absence  from  the  drawing-room  when  I  used  to  call  at  the 
manor-house.  One  of  the  girls  was  understood  to  be  en- 
gaged to  be  married  to  a  far-distant  lieutenant,  of  whom 
Penrith  knew  nothing,  which  circumstance  gave  rise  to 
sundry  ingenious  conceits  in  the  acrostic  line,  based  on 
allusions  to  "  his  story "  and  "  mystery."  I  wonder 
whether  Charlotte  is  alive.  If  she  is,  and  should  see  this 
page,  she  Avill  remember.  It  was  for  her  sake  that  I  de- 
serted, or  tried  to  desert,  Sir  George's  port,  as  related 
above. 

We  left  Penrith  on  that  occasion  without  havinc:  form- 
ed  any  decided  intention  of  establishing  ourselves  there, 
and  returned  to  London  towards  the  end  of  August,  1839. 
During  the  next  two  months  I  was  hard  at  work  complet- 
ing the  MS.  of  my  volumes  on  Brittany.  And  in  Novem- 
ber of  the  same  year,  after  that  long  fast  from  all  journey- 
ing, my  mother  and  I  left  London  for  a  second  visit  to 
Paris.     But  we  did  not  on  this  occasion  travel  together. 

I  left  London  some  days  earlier  than  she  did,  and 
travelled  by  Ostend,  Cologne,  and  Mannheim,  my  princi- 
pal object  being  to  visit  my  old  friend,  Mrs.  Fauche,  who 
was  living  at  the  latter  place.  I  passed  three  or  four  very 
])leasant  days  there,  including,  as  I  find  by  my  diary,  sun- 
dry agreeable  jaunts  to  Heidelberg,  Carlsruhe,  etc.  My 
mother  and  I  had  arranged  to  meet  at  Paris  on  the  4th  of 
December,  and  at  that  date  I  punctually  turned  up  there. 

I  think  that  I  saw  Paris  and  the  Parisians  much  more 


AT  PARIS.  305 

satisfactorily  on  this  occasion  than  during  my  first  visit ; 
and  I  suspect  that  some  of  the  recollections  recorded  in 
these  patjes  as  connected  with  my  first  visit  to  Paris  be- 
long really  to  this  second  stay  there ,  especially  I  think 
that  this  must  have  been  the  case  with  regard  to  my  ac- 
quaintance with  Chateaubriand,  though  I  certainly  Avas 
introduced  to  him  at  the  earlier  period,  for  I  find  the 
record  of  much  talk  with  him  about  lirittany,  which  was 
a  specially  welcome  subject  to  him. 

It  was  during  this  second  visit  that  I  became  acquaint- 
ed with  Henry  Buhver,  afterwards  Lord  Bailing,  and  at 
that  time  first  secretary  of  the  British  legation.  My  visits 
Avere  generally,  perhaps  always,  paid  to  him  when  he  was 
in  bed,  where  he  was  lying  confined  by,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  a  broken  leg.  I  used  to  find  bis  bed  covered  with 
papers  and  blue-books,  and  the  like.  And  I  was  told  that 
the  whole,  or  at  all  events  the  more  important  part  of  the 
business  of  the  embassy  was  done  by  him  as  he  lay  there 
on  the  bed,  which  must  have  been  for  many  a  long  hour  a 
bed  of  suffering. 

Despite  certain  affectations — which  were  so  palpably  af- 
fectations, and  scarcely  pretended  to  be  aught  else,  that 
there  was  little  or  nothing  annoying  or  offensive  in  them 
— he  was  a  very  agreeable  man,  and  was  unquestionably  a 
very  brilliant  one.  He  came  to  dine  Avith  me,  I  remember, 
many  years  afterwards  at  my  house  in  Florence,  wlien  he 
insisted  (the  dining-room  being  on  the  first  floor)  on  being 
carried  up-stairs,  as  we  thought  at  the  time  very  unnec- 
essarily. iJut  for  aught  I  knuw  such  suspicion  may  have 
wronged  him.  At  all  events  Ids  disability,  Avhatever  it 
may  have  been,  did  not  prevent  him  from  making  himself 
very  agreeable. 

One  of  our  guests  upf)n  that  same  occasion  (T  must  drag 
the  mention  of  the  fact  in  head  and  shoulders  here,  or 
else  I  shall  forget  it)  Avas  that  extraordinary  man.  Baron 
Ward,  Avlio  Avas,  or  pcrhajts  I  ought  to  say  at  that  time 
had  been,  jirimc-miMistcr  and  general  administrator  to  the 
Duke  of  Lucca.  Ward  had  been  originallv  brought  from 
Yorkshire  to  be  an  assistant  in  the  ducal  stables.  There, 
doubtless  because  be  kncAv  more  about  the  business  than' 


300  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

anybody  else  concerned  with  it,  he  soon  became  chief. 
In  that  capacity  he  made  himself  so  acceptable  to  the 
duke  that  he  was  taken  from  the  stables  to  be  his  high- 
ness's  personal  attendant.  His  excellence  in  that  position 
soon  enlarged  his  duties  to  those  of  controller  of  the  whole 
ducal  household.  And  thence,  by  degrees  that  were  more 
imperceptible  in  the  case  of  such  a  government  than  they 
could  have  been  in  a  larger  and  more  regularly  adminis- 
tered state,  Ward  became  the  recognized  and  nearly  all- 
powerful  head,  manager,  and  ruler  of  the  little  Duchy  of 
Lucca.  And  I  believe  the  strange  promotion  was  much 
for  Jhe  advantage  of  the  duke  and  of  the  duke's  subjects. 
Ward,  I  take  it,  never  robbed  him  or  any  one  else.  And 
this  eccentric  specialty  the  duke,  though  he  was  no  Solo- 
mon, had  the  wit  to  discover.  In  his  cups  the  ex-groom, 
ex-valet,  was  not  reticent  about  his  sovereign  master, 
and  his  talk  was  not  altogether  of  an  edifying  nature. 
One  sally  sticks  in  my  memory.  "  Ah,  yes  !  He  was 
a  grand  favorite  with  the  women.  But  Z.have  had  the 
grooming  of  him  ;  and  it  was  a  wuss  job  than  ever  groom- 
ing his  bosses  was  !" 

Ward  got  very  drunk  that  night,  I  remember,  and  we 
deemed  it  fortunate  that  our  diplomatist  guest  had  de- 
parted before  the  outward  signs  of  his  condition  became 
manifest. 

Henry  Bulwer,  by  mere  circumstance  of  synchronism, 
has  suerGfested  the  remembrance  of  Ward,  Ward  has  called 
up  the  Duke  of  Lucca,  and  he  brings  with  him  a  host  of 
Baths  of  Lucca  reminiscences  respecting  his  serene  liigh- 
ness  and  others.  But  all  these  must  be  left  to  find  their 
places,  if  anywhere,  when  I  come  to  them  later  on,  or  we 
shall  never  get  back  to  Paris. 

It  was  on  this  our  second  visit  to  Jjutetia  Parisioruni 
that  my  mother  and  I  made  acquaintance  with  a  very 
specially  charming  family  of  the  name  of  D'Henin.  The 
family  circle  consisted  of  General  le  Vicomte  D'llenin, 
his  English  wife,  and  their  daughter.  The  general  was  a 
delightful  old  man,  more  like  an  English  general  officer 
than  any  other  Frenchman  I  ever  met.  Madame  DTIenin 
was  like  an  Englishwoman  not  unaccustomed  to  courts  and 


AT  PARIS.  307 

wholly  unspoiled  by  them.  Mademoiselle  D'Henin,  very 
pretty,  united  the  qualities  of  a  denizen  of  the  inmost 
circles  of  the  fashionable  world  M'ith  those  of  a  really  seri- 
ous student  to  a  degree  I  have  never  seen  eciualled.  Tliey 
were  great  friends  of  the  JJishop  of  London,  and  Made- 
moiselle D'llenin  used  to  correspond  with  him.  She  was 
earnestly  religious,  and  I  remember  her  telling  me  of  a 
demele  she  had  had  with  her  confessor.  She  had  told  him 
in  confession  that  she  was  in  the  habit  of  reading  the  Eng- 
lish Bible.  He  strongly  objected,  and  at  last  told  her  that 
he  could  not  give  her  absolution  unless  she  promised  to 
discontinue  the  practice.  She  told  him  that  rather  than  do 
so  she  would  take  what  would  be  to  her  the  painful  step  of 
declaring  herself  a  Protestant,  whcreu{)on  he  undertook 
to  obtain  a  special  ])ermission  for  her  to  read  the  English 
Bible.  Whether  he  did  really  take  any  such  measures  I 
don't  know,  and  I  fancy  she  never  knew  ;  but  the  upshot 
was  that  she  continued  to  read  the  heretical  book,  and 
nothinir  more  was  ever  said  of  refusing  her  absolution. 

I  have  a  large  bundle  of  letters  from  this  highly  accom- 
plished young  lady  to  my  mother.  Many  passages  of  them 
would  be  interesting  and  valuable  to  an  historian  of  the 
reign  of  Louis  Philippe.  She  writes  at  great  length,  and  her 
standpoint  is  the  very  centre  of  the  monarchical  side  of  the 
French  itolitical  world  of  that  day.  liut  as  I  am  jiot  writ- 
ing a  history  of  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  I  must  content 
my.self  with  extracting  two  or  three  suggestive  notices. 

In  a  letter  dated  from  Paris,  10th  July,  1S40,  she  writes  : 
"You  show  murh  lios])itality  towards  your  royal  guests. 
liut  I  assure  you  it  will  not  in  this  instance  be  taken  as  an 
homage  to  superior  merit — words  wluch  I  have  heard  fre- 
cpiently  ai)plied  here  to  J(din  BulTs  frenzy  about  Soult, 
and  to  the  ]iosj)itality  of  the  English  towards  the  Due  de 
K[('mours].  When  I  told  him  how  much  I  should  like  to 
])C  in  his  place  (/. «.,  about  to  go  to  England),  he  ))rotested 
that  he  wuidil  change  pla(!es  with  no  one,  ^  qtunul  il  s'df/is- 
sait  (l\iUtr  dunn  tin  aussi  (hlicieu.i:  pays,  que  cette  belle 
Aiiijlderrc,  que  vous  aeez  si  bonne  raison  d\iimer  et  d'ad- 
uiinr.'' " 

On  the  liUlh  of  August  in  the  same  year  she  writes  at 


308  WHAT   I   KEMEMBER. 

great  length  of  the  indignation  and  fury  produced  in 
Paris  by  the  ainioinict'nient  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance. 
She  is  immensely  impressed  by  the  fact  that  "people 
gathered  in  the  streets  and  discussed  the  question  in  the 
open  air."  "  Ireland,  Poland,  and  Italy  are  to  rise  to  the 
cry  of  Liberty."  But  she  goes  on  to  say,  "  Small  causes 
produce  great  effects.  Much  of  this  warlike  disposition 
has  arisen  from  the  fact  of  Thiers  havina:  bought  a  majr- 
nificent  horse  to  ride  beside  the  king  at  the  late  review." 
She  proceeds  to  ridicule  the  minister  in  a  tone  very  natu- 
rally suggested  by  the  personal  appearance  of  the  little 
great  man  under  such  circumstances,  which  no  doubt  fur- 
nished Paris  with  much  fun.  But  she  goes  on  to  suggest 
that  the  personal  vanity  which  made  the  prospect  of  such 
a  public  appearance  alluring  to  him  was  reinforced  by  "  cer- 
tain other  secondary  but  still  important  considerations  of 
a  different  nature,  lookinij  to  the  results  which  misrht  fol- 
low  from  the  exhibition  of  a  war  policy.  This  desirable 
end  being  attained  beyond  even  the  most  sanguine  hopes, 
the  martial  fever  seems  on  the  decline." 

Now  all  this  gossip  may  be  accepted  as  evidencing 
the  tone  prevailing  in  the  very  inmost  circles  of  the  cit- 
izen king's  friends  and  surroundings,  and  as  such  is  curi- 
ous. 

Writing  on  the  8th  of  October  in  the  same  year,  after 
speaking  at  great  length  of  Madame  Laffarge,  and  of  the 
extraordinary  interest  her  trial  excited,  dividing  all  Paris 
into  Laffargists  and  anti-Laffargists,  and  almost  supersed- 
ing war  as  a  general  topic  of  conversation,  she  passes  to 
the  then  burning  subject  of  the  fortification  of  Paris,  and 
writes  as  follows — curiously  enough,  considering  the  date 
of  her  letter  : 

"Louis  Phili])pe,  whose  favorite  hobby  it  has  ever  been, 
from  the  idea  that  it  makes  him  master  of  Paris,  lays  tlie 
first  stone  to-daj^  Some  people  consider  it  the  first  stone 
of  the  mausoleum  of  bis  dynasty.  I  sincerely  hope  not ; 
for  everything  that  can  be  called  lady  or  gentleman  runs 
a  good  chance  of  forming  part  of  the  funeral  pile.  The 
political  madness  which  has  taken  possession  of  the  pub- 
lic mind  is  fearful.     Foreign  or  civil  war  !     Such  is  the 


AT  PARIS.  309 

alternative.  Thiers,  who  governs  the  masses,  flatters  them 
by  promises  of  war  and  conquest.  The  Marsellaise,  so 
lately  a  sign  of  rebellion,  is  sung  openly  in  the  theatres ; 
the  soldiers  under  arms  sing  it  in  chorus.  The  Guarde 
Kationale  urfjcs  the  kinsr  to  declare  war.  He  has  resisted  it 
with  all  his  power,  but  has  now,  they  say,  given  way,  and 
has  given  Thiers  carte  blanche.  He  is,  in  fact,  entirely  un- 
der his  control.  The  Chambers  are  not  consulted.  Thiers 
is  our  absolute  sovereign.  We  call  ourselves  a  free  peo|tle. 
We  have  beheaded  one  monarch,  exiled  three  generations 
of  kings  merely  to  have  a  dictator,  ^mal  ne^inal  fait^  et 
mcd  tleve?  There  has  been  a  rumor  of  a  change  of  min- 
istry, but  no  one  believes  it.  The  overthrow  of  Thiers 
would  be  the  signal  for  a  revolution,  and  the  fortifications 
are  not  yet  completed  to  master  it.  May  not  all  these 
armaments  be  the  precursors  of  some  coup  d'etat  f  A 
general  gloom  is  over  all  around  us.  All  the  faces  arc 
long  ;  all  the  conversations  are  sad." 

"^riiis  may  be  accepted  as  a  thoroughly  accurate  and 
trustworthy  representation  of  the  then  state  of  feeling 
and  opinion  among  the  friends  of  Louis  Philippe's  gov- 
ernment, whether  Parceque  Bourbon  or  Quoique  Bourbon, 
and  as  such  is  valuable.  It  is  curious  too,  to  find  a  stanch 
friend  of  the  existing  government,  who  may  be  said  to 
liave  been  even  intimate  with  the  younger  members  of 
the  royal  family,  speaking  of  the  prime-minister  with  the 
detestation  which  these  letters  again  and  again  express 
for  Thiers. 

In  a  letter  of  the  KMh  November,  1840,  the  writer  de- 
scribes at  great  length  tiie  recent  opening  of  the  Chamber 
by  the  king.  She  enlarges  on  the  intensity  of  the  anxiety 
felt  for  the  tenor  of  the  king's  speech,  which  was  supposed 
to  bo  the  announcement  of  war  or  peace  ;  and  <U'scribes 
the  <li'ep  emotion  with  which  Louis  Philijtpc,  (Kclaring 
his  hope  that  peace  might  yet  bo  preserved,  calk'd  upon 
the  nation  to  assist  him  in  the  effort  to  maintain  it ;  and 
expresses  the  scorn  and  Inatliing  with  which  she  over- 
heard oni^  republican  iK-puly  say  to  another  as  the  king 
sj»oke,  ''I'"/' 2  do}tr  iw  liobirt  yiaralri\i  ri»uinr  il fait  ocm- 
hlant  trai'oir  dii  rdiirf^ 


310  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

A  letter  of  the  14th  March,  1842,  is  written  in  better 
spirits  and  a  liglitor  tone.  Speaking  of  the  prevalent  hos- 
tile feeling  towards  England,  the  writer  wishes  that  her 
countrymen  Avould  remember  Lamartine's  observation  that 
'^ ce  patriotisme  co'dte  pen/  II  suffit  (Vignorer,  cVinjurier 
et  de  ha'lr,''^  She  tells  her  correspondent  that  "  if  Lord 
Cowley  has  much  to  do  to  establish  the  exact  line  between 
Lord  Aberdeen's  observations  and  objections,  Lady  Cowley 
has  no  less  difficulty  in  keeping  a  nice  balance  between 
dignity  and  popularity,"  as  "the  embassy  is  besieged  by 
all  sets  and  all  parties  ;  the  tag  and  rag,  because  pushing 
is  a  part  of  their  nature  ;  the  juste  milieu  [how  the  very 
phrase  recalls  a  whole  forgotten  world !],  because  they 
consider  the  English  embassy  as  their  property ;  the 
noble  Faubourg,  because  they  are  tired  of  sulking,  and 
would  not  object  to  treating  Lady  Cowley  as  they  treated 
Colonel  Thorn,*  viz.,  establishing  their  quarters  at  the 
Cowley  Arms,  as  they  did  at  the  Thorn's  Head,  and  invit- 
ing their  friends  on  the  recognized  i)rinciple,  '  Cest  moi 
qui  invite,  et  Mofisieur  qui  2')ciie.''  " 

Then  follows  an  account  of  a  fancy  bed  monstre  at  the 
Tuileries,  Avhich  might  have  turned  out,  says  the  writer, 
to  deserve  that  title  in  another  sense.  It  was  believed 
that  a  plot  had  been  formed  for  the  assassination  of  the 
king,  at  the  moment  when,  according  to  his  invariable 
custom,  he  took  his  stand  at  the  door  of  the  supper-room 
to  receive  the  ladies  there.  Four  thousand  five  hundred 
tickets  had  been  issued,  and  a  certain  nurabei  of  these,  still 
blank,  liad  disappeared.  That  was  certain.  And  it  was 
also  certain  that  the  king  did  not  go  to  the  door  of  the 
supper-room  as  usual.  15ut  the  writer  remarks  that  the 
tickets  may  have  been  stolen  by,  or  for,  people  who  could 
not  obtain  them  legitimately.  But  the  instantly  conceived 
susi)icion  of  a  plot  is  illustrative  of  the  conditions  of  feel- 
ing and  opinions  in  Paris  at  the  time. 

*  Colonel  Thorn  was  an  American  of  fabulous  wealth,  who  was  for  a 
season  or  two  very  notorious  in  Paris.  He  was  the  hero  of  the  often-told 
story  of  the  two  drives  to  Longchamps  the  same  day ;  first  with  one  gor- 
geous equipment  of  liveries,  and  a  second  time  with  other  and  more  re- 
Bplcndenlly  clothed  retainers. 


AT  PARIS.  311 

"For  my  part,"  continues  MaderaoisellG  D'Henin,  "I 
never  enjoyed  a  ball  so  much ;  perhaps  because  I  did  not 
expect  to  be  amused  ;  perhaps  because  all  the  royal  fam- 
ily, the  Jockey  Club,  and  the  fastidious  Frenchwomen 
congratulated  me  upon  my  toilet,  and  voted  it  one  of  the 
handsomest  there.  They  said  the  most  becoming  (but 
that  was  de  Peau  benite  de  cour)  ;  perhaps  it  was  because 
the  dukes  of  Orleans,  Nemours,  and  Aumale,  who  never 
dance,  and  did  so  very  little  that  evening,  all  three 
honored  me  with  a  quadrille.  You  see  I  expose  to  you 
all  the  very  linings  of  my  heart.  I  dissect  it  and  exhibit 
all  the  vanity  it  contains.  But  you  will  excuse  me  when 
I  tell  you  of  a  compliment  that  might  have  turned  a  wiser 
head  than  mine.  The  fame  of  my  huntress's  costume 
[Mademoiselle  D'llenin  was  in  those  days  the  very  beau 
ideal  of  a  Diana]  was  such  that  it  reached  the  ears  of  the 
wife  of  our  butcher,  who  sent  to  beg  that  I  would  lend  it 
to  her  to  copy,  as  she  was  going  to  a  fancy  ball !" 

A  letter  of  the  8th  of  August,  1842,  written  from  Ful- 
ham  Palace,  contains  some  interesting  notices  of  the  grief 
and  desolation  caused  by  the  sad  death  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans. 

"  Was  there  ever  a  more  afflicting  calamity  ?"  she  writes. 
"  When  last  I  wrote  his  name  in  a  letter  to  you,  it  was  to 
describe  him  as  the  admired  of  all  beholders,  the  hero  of 
the  f^te^  the  pride  and  honor  of  France,  and  now  what  re- 
mains of  liim  is  in  liis  grave  !  The  affliction  of  his  family 
baffles  all  description.  I  receive  the  most  touching  ac- 
counts from  Paris.  Some  ladies  about  the  court  write  to 
me  that  nutliing  can  c<|ual  their  grief.  As  long  as  the 
coffin  remained  in  the  chapel  at  Neuilly,  the  members  of 
the  family  were  incessantly  kneeling  by  the  side  of  it, 
praying  and  weeping.  The  king  so  far  mastered  his  feel- 
ings that  wlicneviT  he  had  official  duties  to  perform  ho 
was  sutliciently  com]>osed  to  iierfonn  son  mrtur  de  rot'. 
IJut  when  the  painful  task  was  done  lie  would  rush  to  the 
chapel  and  weej)  over  the  dead  body  i>\'  his  son  till  the 
wliolo  palace  rang  with  liis  cries  and  lanu-ntations.  ^VIlen 
the  body  was  removed  from  Xeuilly  to  Notre  Danie,  the 
scene  at  Meuilly  was  truly  heartr(  iidiiig.     My  father  has 


312  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

seen  tlic  king  and  the  princes  several  times  since  the  catas- 
trophe, and  he  says  it  lias  done  the  work  of  years  on  their 
personal  api)earance.  The  Due  de  Kemonrs  has  neither 
eaten  nor  slept  since  liis  brother  died,  and  looks  as  if  walk- 
ing out  of  his  grave.  Mamma  wrote  him  a  few  lines  of 
condolence,  which  he  answered  by  a  most  affecting  note. 
Papa  was  summoned  to  attend  the  king  to  the  House,  as 
f/rand  officler,  and  says  he  never  witnessed  such  a  scene. 
Even  the  opposition  shed  their  crocodile  tears.  Placed 
immediately  near  the  king  on  the  steps  of  the  throne,  he 
saw  the  struggle  between  kingly  decorum  and  fatherly 
affliction.  Nature  had  the  victory.  Three  times  the  king 
attempted  to  speak,  three  times  he  was  obliged  to  stop, 
and  at  last  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.  The  contagion 
gained  all  around  him.  And  it  was  only  interrupted  by 
sobs  that  he  could  proceed.  And  it  is  in  the  face  of  this 
despair,  when  the  body  of  the  i)rince  is  scarcely  cold,  that 
that  horrid  Thiers  and  his  associates  begin  afresh  their 
infernal  mananivres  !" 

A  letter  of  the  3d  April,  1842,  contains  among  a  quan- 
tity of  the  gossip  of  the  day  an  odd  story,  which,  the 
writer  says,  "is  jjutting  Rome  in  a  ferment,  and  the 
clergy  in  raptures."  I  think  I  remember  that  it  made  a 
considerable  stir  in  ecclesiastic  circles  at  the  time.  A 
certain  M.  Katisbonne,  a  Jew,  it  seems  entered  a  church 
in  Rome  (the  writer  does  not  say  so,  but,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  it  was  the  "  Gesu  ")  with  a  friend,  a  M.  de  Bus- 
sieres,  who  had  some  business  to  transact  in  the  sacristy. 
The  Jew,  who  professed  complete  infidelity,  meantime 
was  looking  at  the  pictures.  But  M.  de  Bussieres,  when 
his  business  was  done,  found  him  prostrate  on  the  pave- 
ment in  front  of  a  })icture  of  the  Madonna.  The  Jew,  on 
coming  to  himself,  declared  that  the  Virgin  had  stepped 
trom  her  frame  and  addressed  him,  witli  the  result,  as  he 
said,  that  having  fallen  to  the  ground  an  infidel,  he  rose  a 
convinced  Christian !  Mademoiselle  D'llenin  writes  in  a 
tone  which  indicates  small  belief  in  the  miracle,  but  seems 
to  accept  as  certain  the  further  facts,  that  the  convert 
gave  all  he  possessed  to  the  Cliurch  and  became  a  monk. 

I  have  recently — even  while  transcribing  these  extracts 


AT  PARIS.  313 

from  her  letters — heard  of  the  death,  Avithin  the  last  few 
years,  of  the  writer  of  them.  She  died  in  England,  I  am 
told,  and  unmarried.  Her  sympathies  and  affections  were 
always  strongly  turned  to  her  mother's  countr}',  as  indeed 
may  he  in  some  degree  inferred  from  even  those  passages 
of  her  letters  whieh  have  been  given.  And  I  can  well 
conceive  that  the  events  which,  each  more  disastrous  than 
its  predecessor,  followed  in  France  shortly  after  the  date 
of  the  last  of  them,  may  have  rendered,  esi)ecially  after 
the  death  of  her  parents,  a  life  in  France  distasteful  to 
her,  Uut  I,  an<l,  I  think,  my  mother  also,  had  entirely 
lost  sight  of  her  for  very  many  years.  Had  I  imagined 
that  she  was  living  in  England  I  should  undoubtedly  have 
endeavored  to  see  her. 

I  liave  known  many  women,  denizens  oile  (jrand  momle, 
Avho  have  adorned  it  with  e(pjally  brilliant  talents,  equally 
captivating  beauty,  equally  sparkling  wit  and  vivacity  of 
intelligence.  And  I  have  known  many,  denizens  of  the 
studious  and  the  book  world,  gifted  with  larger  powers  of 
intellect,  and  more  richly  dowered  with  the  results  of 
thought  and  study.  But  I  do  not  think  that  I  ever  met 
with  one  who  possessed  in  so  large  a  degree  the  choice 
product  resulting  from  conversance  ■with  both  these 
worlds.     Slie  was  in  truth  a  very  brilliant  creature. 

Madame  D'Henin  I  rememl)er  made  us  laugh  heartily 
one  evening  by  telling  us  tlie  following  anecdote.  At  one 
of  those  remarkable  omnium- gatherum  receptions  at  the 
Tuileries  of  which  I  have  sj)oken  in  a  former  chapter,  she 
heard  an  American  lady,  to  whom  Louis  Philippe  was 
talking  of  his  American  recollections  and  of  various  per- 
sons he  had  known  there,  say  to  him,  "Oh,  sire,  they  all 
retain  the  most  lively  recollections  of  your  majesty's  so- 
journ among  them,  and  icish  nnthuHf  more  than  that  you 
xhonlil  return  aiiumtj  tlnni  aijnin  .'"  The  Duke  of  Orleans, 
who  was  standing  behind  the  king,  fairly  burst  into  a  guf- 
faw. 

There  was  a  story  current  in  Home,  in  the  days  of  Pius 

the  Ninth,  whi<-h  may  be  coupled  with  this  as  a  good /WJ- 

(Iitnf.     Ilis  holiness,  when  he  had  occnpieil  the  ])apal  lhroiu> 

for  a  period  considerably  exceeding  (he  legenilarv  I  went  v- 

14 


314  AVIIAT   I    REMKMBEIl.      ' 

five  years  of  St.  Peter,  was  one  day  very  affably  asking  an 
Englisliman,  who  had  been  presented  to  him,  whether  he 
had  seen  evervtliinfj  in  Rome  most  calculated  to  interest 
a  stranger,  and  was  answered  :  "  Yes  indeed,  j'our  holiness, 
I  think  almost  everything,  except  one  which  I  confess  I 
have  been  particularly  anxious  to  witness — a  conclave !" 

Here  are  a  few  jottings  at  random  from  my  diary, 
Avhich  may  still  have  some  little  interest : 

"  Madame  Le  Roi,  a  daughter  of  General  Hoche,  told 
me  (22d  January,  1840)  that  as  she  was  driving  on  the 
boulevard  a  day  or  two  ago,  a  sou  piece  was  thrown  with 
great  violence  at  the  window  of  her  carriage,  smashing  it 
to  pieces.  This,  she  said,  Avas  because  her  family  arms 
were  emblazoned  on  the  panel.  Most  of  the  carriages  in 
Paris,  she  said,  had  no  arms  on  them  for  fear  of  similar 
attacks," 

Then  we  were  active  frequenters  of  the  theatres.  We 
go,  I  find,  to  the  Frangais,  to  see  Mars,  then  sixty  years 
old,  in  "  Les  Dehors  Trompeurs"  and  in  the  "  Fausses 
Confidences;"  to  the  opera  to  hear  "Robert  le  Diable" 
and  "  Lucia  di  Lamraermuir,"  with  Persiani,  Tamburini, 
and  Rubini ;  and  the  following  night  to  the  Frangais 
again,  to  see  Rachel  in  "  Cinna." 

I  thought  her  personally,  I  observe,  very  attractive. 
But  that,  and  sundry  other  subsequent  experiences,  left 
me  with  the  impression  that  she  was  truly  very  powerful 
in  the  representation  of  scorn,  indignation,  hatred,  and 
all  the  sterner  and  less  amiable  passions  of  the  soul,  but 
failed  painfully  when  her  role  required  the  exhibition  of 
tenderness  or  any  of  the  gentler  emotions.  These  were 
my  impressions  when  she  was  young  and  1  was  compara- 
tively so.  But  when,  many  years  afterwards,  I  saw  lier 
repeatedly  in  Italy,  they  were  not,  I  think,  much  modified. 

The  frequent  occasions  on  which,  subsequently,  I  saw 
Ristori  produced  an  impression  on  me  very  much  the  re- 
verse. I  remember  thinking  Ristori's  "  Mirra"  too  good, 
80  terribly  true  as  to  be  almost  too  painful  for  the  thea- 
tre. I  thought  Rachel's  "  Marie  Stuart,"  upon  the  whole, 
her  finest  performance,  though  "  Adrienne"  ran  it  hard. 

Persiani,  I  note,  sujiported  by  Lablaclie  and  Rubini,  had 


AT  PARIS.  315 

a  most  triumi)hant  reception  in  "  Inez  de  Castro,"  while 
Albertazzi  was  very  coldly  received  in  "Blanche  de  Cas- 
tille."  Grisi  in  "Norma"  Avas  "superb."  "Persiani  and 
P.  Garcia  sang  a  duet  from  '  Tancredi ;'  it  was  divine  !  I 
think  I  like  Garcia's  voice  better  than  any  of  them.  Nor 
could  I  think  her  uj^ly,  as  it  is  the  fashion  to  call  her, 
though  it  must  be  admitted  that  her  mouth  and  teeth  are 
alarming." 

Then  there  were  brilliant  receptions  at  the  English 
embassy  (Lord  Granville)  and  at  the  Austrian  embassy 
(Comte  d'Appony).  My  diary  remarks  that  stars  and 
gold  lace  and  ribbons  of  all  the  orders  in  Christendom 
were  more  abundant  at  the  latter,  but  female  beauty  at 
the  former.  I  remember  much  admiring  that  of  Lady 
Honoria  Cadogan,  and  that  of  a  very  remarkably  lovely 
Visconti  girl,  a  younger  sister  of  the  Princess  Belgiojoso. 
But  despite  this  perfect  beauty,  my  diary  notes  that  it 
was  "  curious  to  observe  the  unmistakable  superiority  as 
a  human  being  of  the  young  English  patrician."  I  re- 
member that  the  "  sit-down  "  suppers  at  the  Austrian  em- 
bassy— a  separate  little  table  for  every  two,  three,  or  four 
guests — were  remarked  on  as  a  novelty  (and  applauded) 
by  the  Parisians. 

Then  at  3Iiss  Clarke's  (afterwards  INEadame  Mold)  I 
find  Fauriel,  "  the  first  Proven9al  scholar  in  Europe,"  de- 
lightful, and  am  disgusted  with  Merimee,  because  he  man- 
ifested self-sufficiency,  as  it  seemed  to  my  youthful  criti- 
cism, by  ])noh-poohing  the  probability  of  the  temple  at 
LaidefT  in  Brittany  having  been  aught  else  than  a  church 
of  tlie  Templars, 

Tlicn  Arago  reads  an  Elor/c  on  "  old  Ampere,"  of 
which  I  only  remark  that  it  laste<l  two  hours  and  a  half. 
Then  there  was  a  dinner  at  Dr.  Gilchrist's,  whose  widow 
our  old  friend  Pepc,  who  for  many  years  liad  always 
called  her  "  Madame  (iliee-cree,"  subsequently  married. 
My  notes,  written  the  same  evi'uing,  remind  me  that  "I 
did  not  mueli  like  the  radical  old  doctor  (Iiis  wife  was  an 
old  acfjuaintance,  but  I  had  never  seen  him  before);  lie  is 
eighty,  aiKJ  ought  to  know  better,  (^)ld  Nymzeviteh  (I 
am  not  sure  of  the  spelling),  the  ex-Cliancellor  of  I'oland, 


316  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

dined  with  us.  He  is  eighty-four.  When  he  said  that  he 
had  conversed  with  the  Duo  de  Richelieu,  I  started  as  if 
he  had  announced  himself  as  the  Wandering  Jew.  But, 
in  fact,  he  had  had,  when  a  young  man,  an  interview  with 
the  due,  then  ninety.  He  was,  Nyrazevitch  told  me,  dread- 
fully emaciated,  but  dressed  very  splendidly  in  a  purple 
coat  all  bedizened  with  silver  lace.  '  He  received  me,'  said 
the  old  ex-chancellor, '  with  much  affable  dignity.'  " 

Then  comes  a  breakfast  with  Pepe,  at  which  I  met  the 
President  Thibeaudeau,  "a  gray  old  man  who  makes  a 
point  of  saying  rude,  coarse,  and  disagreeable  things, 
which  his  friends  call  dry  humor.  He  found  fault  with 
everything  at  the  breakfast-table." 

Then  a  visit  to  the  Chamber  (where  I  heard  Soult,  Du- 
pin,  and  Teste  sj^eak,  and  thought  it  "  a  terrible  bear-gar- 
den") is  followed  by  attendance  at  a  sermon  by  Athanase 
Coquerel,  the  Protestant  preacher  whose  reputation  in  the 
Parisian  henu  7nonde  was  great  in  those  days.  He  was, 
says  my  diary,  "  exceedingly  eloquent,  but  I  did  not  like 
his  sermon  ;"  for  which  dislike  my  notes  proceed  to  give 
the  reasons,  which  I  spare  the,  I  hope  grateful,  reader. 
Then  I  went  to  hear  Bishop  Luscombe  at  the  ambassador's 
chapel,  and  listened  to  "  a  very  stupid  sermon."  I  seem, 
somewhat  to  my  surprise  as  I  read  the  records  of  it,  to  have 
had  a  pronounced  taste  for  sermons  in  those  days,  which 
I  fear  I  have  somewhat  outgrown.  But,  then,  I  have  been 
very  deaf  during  my  later  decades. 

Bishop  Luscombe  may  perhaps,  however,  be  made  more 
amusing  to  the  reader  than  he  was  to  me  in  the  embassy 
chapel  by  the  following  fragment  of  his  ex|)enence.  The 
bishop  arrived  one  day  at  Paddington,  and  could  not  find 
his  luggage.  He  called  a  porter  to  find  it  for  him,  telling 
him  the  name  to  be  read  on  the  articles.  The  man,  very 
busy  with  other  people,  answered  hurriedly,  "You  must 
go  to  hell  for  your  luggage."  Now  Luscombe,  who  was 
a  somewhat  pompous  and  very  hishopy  man,  was  dread- 
fully shocked,  and  felt,  as  he  said,  as  if  the  porter  had 
struck  him  in  the  face.  In  extreme  indignation  he  de- 
manded Avlicre  he  could  speak  with  any  of  the  authorities, 
and  was  told  that  "the  board"  was  then  sitting  up-stairs. 


AT  PARIS.  317 

So  to  the  boardroom  the  bishop  went  straightway,  and, 
announcing  himself,  made  his  complaint.  Tiie  chairman, 
professing  his  regret  that  such  offence  should  have  been 
given,  said  he  feared  the  man  must  have  been  drunk,  but 
that  he  should  be  immediately  summoned  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  his  conduct.  So  the  porter,  in  great  trepidation, 
appeared  in  a  few  minutes  before  the  august  tribunal  of 
"  the  board." 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  he,  in  reply  to  the  chairman's  indig- 
nant questioning,  "  what  could  I  do  ?  I  was  werry  busy 
at  the  time.  So  when  the  gentleman  says  as  his  name 
was  Luscombe,  I  could  do  no  better  than  tell  him  to  go  to 
h'ell  for  his  luggage,  and  he'd  have  found  it  there  all 


right !" 


'Oh  !  I  see,"  said  the  chairman;  "it  is  a  case  of  mis- 
placed aspirate  !  We  have  spaces  on  the  wall  marked 
M'ith  the  letters  of  the  al})habet,  and  you  would  have  found 
vour  lufTfracre  at  the  letter  L.  You  will  see  that  the  man 
meant  no  offence.  I  am  sorry  you  should  have  been  so 
scandalized,  but  though  wo  succeed,  I  hope,  in  making  our 
porters  civil  to  our  customers,  it  would  be  hopeless,  I  fear, 
to  attempt  to  make  them  say  L  correctly."  iSolvuntnr  risii 
tabidce. 

I  find  chronicled  a  long  talk  with  Mohl  one  evening  at 
Madame  Recamier's.  The  room  was  very  full  of  notable 
people  of  all  sorts,  and  the  tide  of  chattering  was  running 
very  strong.  "  How  can  anything  last  long  in  France  V" 
said  he,  in  rej)ly  to  my  having  said  (in  answer  to  his  as- 
sertion that  Cyousin's  jihilosophy  had  gone  by)  that  it  had 
been  somewhat  short-lived.  "  Reputations  are  made  and 
pass  away.  It  is  impossible  that  they  sliould  endure.  It 
is  in  such  iilaces  as  this  that  thoy  are  destroyed.  The 
friction  is  jirodigious  !" 

Wc  then  began  to  talk  of  the  state  of  religion  in  France. 
lie  said  that  among  a  large  set  religion  was  now  d  la 
mode.  I>ut  he  did  n<H  sup])Ose  that  many  of  the  line  folks 
wl)o  jKitriDiizcd  it  had  much  belief  in  it.  Tlie  clergy  of 
France  were,  he  said,  alni<ist  invariably  very  illiterate, 
(iui/ot,  I  remembered,  calls  them,  in  his  "  History  of  Civ- 
ilization," doctcs  ct  crudil.t,  but  I  abstained  fmm  ([uoting 


318  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

Lini.  Molil  Avent  on  to  tell  me  a  story  of  a  newspaper 
that  had  been  about  to  be  established,  called  Le  Democrat. 
The  shareholders  met,  when  it  appeared  that  one  party 
wished  to  make  it  a  Roman  Catholic  and  the  other  an 
atheist  organ.  Whereupon  the  existence  of  God  was  put 
to  the  vote  and  carried  by  a  majority  of  one,  at  which 
the  atheist  party  were  so  disgusted  that  they  seceded  in 
a  body. 

I  got  to  like  Mohl  much,  and  had  more  conversation,  I 
think,  with  him  than  with  any  other  of  the  numerous  men 
of  note  with  whom  I  became  more  or  less  acquainted.  On 
another  occasion,  when  I  found  him  in  his  cabinet,  walled 
up  as  usual  among  his  books,  our  talk  fell  on  his  great 
work,  the  edition  of  the  Oriental  MSS.  in  the  "  Biblio- 
theque  Royale,"  which  was  to  be  completed  in  ten  folio 
volumes,  the  first  of  which,  just  out,  he  was  showing  me. 
He  complained  of  the  extreme  slowness  of  the  govern- 
ment presses  in  getting  on  with  the  work.  This  he  at- 
tributed to  the  absurd  costliness,  as  he  considered  it,  of 
the  style  in  Avhich  the  work  was  brought  out.  The  cost 
of  producing  that  first  volume,  he  told  me,  had  been  over 
£1(300  sterling.  It  was  to  be  sold  at  a  little  less  than  a 
hundred  francs.  Something  was  said  (by  me,  I  think)  of 
the  possibility  of  obtaining  assistance  from  the  king,  mIio 
was  generally  supposed  to  be  immensely  Avealthy.  Mold 
said  that  he  did  not  believe  Louis  Philippe  to  be  nearly 
so  rich  a  man  as  he  was  supposed  to  be.  He  had  spent, 
he  said,  enormous  sums  on  the  chateaux  he  had  restored, 
and  Avas  affirmed,  by  those  Avho  had  the  means  of  know- 
ing the  fact,  to  be  at  that  time  twelve  millions  of  francs 
in  debt. 

My  liking  for  Mohl  seems  to  have  been  fully  justified 
by  the  estimation  he  Avas  generally  held  in.  I  find  in  a 
recently  published  volume  by  Kathleen  O'Meara,  on  the 
life  of  my  old  friend,  Miss  Clarke,  who  afterwards  became 
his  wife,  the  following  passage  quoted  from  Sainte-Beuve, 
who  describes  him  as  "  a  man  Avho  was  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  learning  and  of  inquiry,  an  Oriental  Sffvanf — more 
than  a  savruit — a  sage,  with  a  mind  clear,  loyal,  and  vast ; 
a  German  mind  passed  through  an  English  iilter,  a  cloud- 


AT  PARIS.  319 

less,  unruffled  mirror,  open  and  limpid;  of  pure  and  frank 
morality;  early  disenchanted  with  all  things  ;  witli  a  grain 
of  irony  devoid  of  all  bitterness,  the  laugh  of  a  child  un- 
der a  bald  head  ;  a  Goethe-like  intelligence,  but  free  from 
all  prejudice."  "A  charming  and  .ynritiieUe  Frenchwom- 
an," Miss  O'Meara  goes  on  to  say,  "said  of  Julius  Mold 
that  Nature,  in  forming  his  character,  had  skimmed  the 
cream  of  the  three  nationalities  to  which  he  belonged  by 
birth,  by  adoption,  and  by  marriage,  making  him  deep  as 
a  German,  spirituel  as  a  Frenchman,  and  loyal  as  an  Eng- 
lishman." 

1  may  insert  here  the  following  short  note  from  Madame 
Mohl,  because  the  manner  of  it  is  very  characteristic  of 
her.     It  is,  as  was  usual  with  her,  undated. 

"  Ifv  DKAK  Ma.  Troli.opi:, — By  accident  I  liave  just  learned  tliat  you  are 
in  London.  If  I  could  sec  you  and  talic  over  my  dear  old  friend  (Madame 
Recamicr)  I  should  be  so  much  obliged  and  so  glad.  I  live  68  Oxford 
Terrace,  Hyde  Park.  If  you  would  write  nie  a  note  to  say  when  I  should 
be  at  home  for  the  purpose.  But  if  you  can't,  I  am  generally,  not  always, 
found  after  four.  But  if  you  could  come  on  the  10th  or  12th  after  nine 
we  have  a  parly.  I  am  living  at  Mrs.  Schwabe's  just  now  till  IGth  this 
month.     I'ray  write  me  a  note,  even  if  you  can't  come. 

"  Yours  ever,  "  Mary  Mohl." 

All  the  capital  letters  in  the  above  transcript,  except 
those  in  her  name,  are  mine  ;  she  uses  none.  The  note  is 
written  in  lieadlong  hunv. 

.Migni't,  wlx^m  I  met  at  the  house  of  Thiers,  1  liked  tuo, 
l)Ut  Mohl  was  my  favorite. 

It  was  all  very  amusing,  with  as  much  excitement  and 
interest  of  all  kinds  crammed  into  a  few  weeks  as  might 
liave  lasted  one  for  a  twelvenuuith.  And  I  liked  it  better 
than  teaching  Latin  to  the  youth  of  llirmingham.  JJut  it 
would  sei-m  tliat  there  was  something  that  I  liked  l)etter 
still.  l''or  on  .March  30,  leaving  my  niotlur  in  the  full 
swing  of  the  Parisian  gayeties,  I  bade  adieu  to  tlicin  all 
and  once  again  "took  to  the  road,"  bound  on  an  excursion 
througii  central  !•' ranee. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

IX    AVESTERX    FRANCE. AGAIN    IN    PARIS. 

My  journey  through  central  France  took  me  by  Char- 
tres,  Orleans,  down  the  L'.ire  to  Nantes,  then  through  La 
Vendee  to  Fontenay,  Niort,  Poitiers,  Saintes,  Rochcfort, 
La  Rochelle,  Bordeaux,  Angouleme,  Limoges,  and  thence 
back  to  Paris.  On  looking  at  the  book  for  the  first  time 
since  I  read  the  jjroof-sheets  I  find  it  amusing.  The  fault 
of  it,  as  an  account  of  the  district  traversed,  is  that  it 
treats  of  the  localities  described  on  a  scale  that  would 
have  needed  twenty  volumes,  instead  of  two,  to  complete 
the  story  of  my  tour  in  the  same  proportion.  I  do  not 
remember  that  any  of  my  critics  noted  this  fault.  Per- 
hajis  they  feared  that  on  the  first  suggestion  of  such  an 
idea  I  should  have  set  about  mending  the  difficulty  by  the 
production  of  a  score  of  other  volumes  on  the  subject !  I 
could  easily  have  done  so.  I  was  in  no  danger  of  incur- 
ring the  anathema  launched  by  Sterne  —  I  think  it  was 
Sterne-  against  the  man  who  w^ent  from  Dan  to  Becrsheba 
and  found  all  barren.  I  found  matter  of  interest  every- 
where, and  could  have  gone  on  doing  so,  as  it  seemed  to 
me  in  those  days,  forever. 

The  ])art  of  France  I  visited  is  not  much  betravclled  by 
Englishmen,  and  the  general  idea  is  that  it  is  not  an  inter- 
esting section  of  the  country.  I  thought,  and  still  think, 
otherwise.  My  notion  is  that  if  a  line  were  drawn  through 
France  from  Calais  to  the  centre  of  the  Pyrenean  chain, 
})y  far  the  greater  part  of  the  prettiest  country  and  most 
interesting  j)oj)ulutions,  as  well  as  places,  would  be  fcnind 
to  the  westward  of  it,  I  do  not  think  that  my  bill  of  fare 
excited  any  great  interest  in  the  reading  world  ;  but  I  sup- 
pose that  T  contrived  to  interest  a  portion  of  it,  for  the 
book  was  fairly  successful. 

I  wrote  a  book  in  many  respects  of  the  same  kind  many 


IN   WESTERN  FRANCE.  321 

years  subsequently,  giving  an  account  of  a  journey  tbrougli 
certain  little-visited  districts  of  central  Italy,  under  tlic 
title  of  a  "Lenten  Journey."  It  is  not,  I  think,  so  good 
a  book  as  my  French  journeys  furnished,  mainly,  to  my 
mind,  because  it  was  in  one  small  volume  instead  of  two 
big  ones,  and  both  for  want  of  space  and  want  of  time 
was  done  hurriedly  and  too  compendiously.  The  true 
motto  for  the  writer  of  such  a  book  is  nihil  a  me  alienum 
pttto,  whether  humanum  or  otherwise.  My  own  opinion 
is,  to  make  a  perfectly  clean  breast  of  it,  that  I  could  now 
write  a  fairly  amusing  book  on  a  journey  from  Tyburn 
turni)ike  to  Stoke  Pogis.  But  then  such  books  should  be 
addressed  to  readers  who  are  not  in  such  a  tearing  hurry  as 
the  unhappy  world  is  in  these  latter  days. 

It  would  seem  that  I  found  my  two  octavo  volumes  did 
not  afiFord  me  nearly  enough  space  to  say  my  say  respect- 
ing the  country  traversed,  for  they  are  brought  to  an  end 
somewhat  abruptly  by  a  hurried  return  from  Limoges  to 
Paris  ;  whereas  my  ramble  was  much  more  extended,  in- 
cluding both  the  upper  and  lower  provinces  of  Auvergne 
and  the  whole  of  the  Bourbonnais.  My  voluminous  notes 
of  the  whole  of  these  wanderings  are  now  before  me.  But 
I  will  let  my  readers  off  easy,  recording  only  that  I  walked 
from  Murat  to  St.  Flour,  a  distance  of  fifteen  miles,  in  five 
minutes  under  three  hours.  Not  bad  !  My  diary  notes 
that  it  was  fre<piently  very  difficult  to  find  my  way  in 
walking  about  Auvergne,  from  the  paucity  of  people  I 
could  find  who  cuuM  speak  French,  the  hiixjiie  dn  pfii/s 
being  as  unintelligible  as  Choctaw.  This  would  hardly 
be  tlie  case  now. 

I  don't  know  whether  a  knot  of  leading  tradesmen  at 
Bordeaux  could  now  be  found  to  talk  as  did  such  a  party 
with  whom  I  g<;t  into  convt-rsation  in  that  year,  1840.  It 
was  explained  to  me  that  England,  as  was  well  known, 
h.id  liberated  her  slaves  in  the  West  Indies  perfectly  well 
knowing  that  the  colonies  would  be  absolutely  ruined  by 
the  measure,  but  expecting  to  lie  amply  eojupensated  by 
the  ruin  of  the  French  colonies,  which  woultl  result  from 
the  example,  and  the  conseciuent  extension  of  trade  with 
the  East  Indies,  from  which  France  would  be  compelled 


822  WUAT  I  REMEMBER. 

to  purchase  all  the  articles  her  own  colonies  now  supplied 
her  with.  One  of  these  individuals  told  nie  and  the  rest 
of  his  audience  that  he  had  the  means  of  Jcnoioing  that 
the  interest  of  the  English  national  debt  was  jiaid  every 
year  by  fresh  borrowing,  and  that  bankruptcy  and  abso- 
lute smash  must  occur  within  a  few  years.  "Ah  !"  said 
a  much  older,  gray-headed  man,  who  had  been  listening 
sitting  with  his  hands  reposing  on  his  walking-stick  before 
hira,  and  who  spoke  with  a  sort  of  patient,  long-expecting 
hope  and  a  deep  sigh — "  ah  !  we  have  been  looking  for  that 
many  a  year,  but  I  am  beginning  to  doubt  whether  I  shall 
live  to  sec  it."  My  assurances  that  matters  were  not  alto- 
gether so  bad  as  they  supposed  in  England,  of  course,  met 
wnth  little  credence.  Still,  they  listened  to  me,  and  did 
not  show  angry  signs  of  a  consciousness  that  I  was  auda- 
ciously befooling  them,  till  the  talk  having  veered  to  Lon- 
don, I  ventured  to  assure  them  that  London  was  not  sm*- 
rounded  by  any  octroi  boundary,  and  that  no  impost  of  that 
nature  was  levied  there.*  Then,  in  truth,  I  might  as  well 
have  assured  them  that  London  streets  were  literally  paved 
with  gold. 

On  the  30th  of  May,  1840,  I  returned  with  my  mother 
from  Paris  to  her  house  in  York  Street.  Life  had  been 
very  pleasant  there  to  her  I  believe,  and  certainly  to  me 
during  those  periods  of  it  which  my  inborn  love  of  ram- 
bling allowed  me  to  pass  there.  But  in  the  following 
June  it  was  determined  that  the  house  in  York  Street 
should  be  given  up.  Probably  the  causa  causans  of  this 
determination  was  the  fact  of  my  sister's  removal  to  far 
Penrith.  But  I  think,  too,  that  there  was  a  certain  un- 
avowed  feeling  that  we  had  eaten  up  London,  and  should 
enjoy  a  move  to  new  pastures. 

I  remember  well  a  certain  morning  in  York  Street  when 
w^e — my  mother  and  I — held  a  solemn  audit  of  accounts. 
It  was  found  that  during  her  residence  in  York  Street  she 
had  spent  a  good  deal  more  than  she  had  supposed.  She 
had  entertained  a  good  deal,  giving  frequent  "  little  din- 

*  It  mny  possibly  be  neccsaary  to  tell  untravcllcd  Englishmen  that  the 
octroi,  universal  on  the  Continent,  is  an  impost  levied  on  all  articles  of 
consumption  at  the  gates  of  a  town, 


AGAIN  IN  PARIS.  323 

ners."  But  dinners,  however  little,  are  apt  in  London  to 
leave  tradesmen's  bills  not  altogether  small  in  proportion 
to  their  littleness.  "The  fact  is,"  said  my  mother,  "that 
potatoes  have  been  quite  exceptionally  dear."  For  a  very 
long  series  of  years  she  never  heard  the  last  of  those  ex- 
ceptional potatoes.  But,  despite  the  alarming  deficit  caused 
by  those  unfortunate  vegetables,  I  do  not  think  the  aban- 
donment of  the  establishment  in  York  Street  Avas  caused 
by  financial  considerations.  She  was  earning  in  those 
years  large  sums  of  money — quite  as  large  as  any  she  had 
been  spending — and  might  have  continued  in  London  liad 
she  been  so  minded. 

No  doubt  I  had  much  to  do  with  the  determination  we 
came  to.  But,  for  ray  part,  if  it  had  at  that  time  been 
proposed  to  me  that  our  establishment  should  be  reduced 
to  a  couple  of  trunks,  and  all  our  worldly  possessions  to 
the  contents  of  them,  with  an  opening  vista  of  carriages, 
diligences,  and  ships  ad  Ubltiun  in  prospect,  I  should  have 
jum{)od  at  the  idea.  A  caravan,  which,  in  addition  to 
shirts  and  stockings,  could  have  carried  about  one's  books 
and  writing-tackle,  would  have  seemed  the  siimmiim  ho- 
ninn  of  human  felicity. 

.So  we  turned  our  backs  on  London  without  a  thought 
of  regret  and  once  again  "  took  the  road  ;"  but  this  time 
separately,  my  mother  going  to  my  sister  at  Penrith  and 
I  to  pass  the  summer  months  in  wanderings  in  Picardy, 
Lorraine,  and  French  Flanders,  and  the  ensuing  winter  in 
Paris. 

I  hardly  know  which  was  the  pleasanter  time.  By  this 
time  I  was  no  stranger  to  Paris,  and  had  many  friends 
there.  It  was  my  first  experiment  of  living  there  as  a 
bachelor,  as  I  was  going  to  say,  l)Ut  I  mean  "on  my  own 
hook,"  and  left  altogether  to  ray  own  devices.  I  found, 
of  course,  that  my  then  experiences  difTcred  considerably 
from  those  acquireil  when  living  en  futnilli'.  But  I  ani 
disjH)sed  to  think  that  the  tolerably  intimate  knowledge 
I  llattcT  myself  I  possessed  of  the  Paris  and  Parisians  of 
Louis  Philippe's  time  was  mainly  llu^  result  «>f  this  second 
residence.    I  remem])er,  among  a  host  of  things  indicating 


324  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

the  extent  of  the  difference  between  those  days  and  these, 
that  I  lived  in  a  very  good  apartment,  an  ti'oisihne,  in  one 
of  tlie  streets  immediately  behind  the  best  part  of  the  Rue 
de  Rivoli  for  one  hundred  francs  a  month  !  This  price 
included  all  service  (save,  of  course,  a  tip  to  the  porter), 
and  the  preparation  of  my  coffee  for  breakfast  if  I  needed 
it.     For  dinner,  or  any  other  meal,  I  had  to  go  out. 

"Society"  lived  in  Paris  in  those  days — not  unreason- 
ably as  the  result  soon  showed — in  perpetual  fear  of  being 
knocked  all  to  pieces  by  an  outbreak  of  revolution,  though, 
of  course,  nobody  said  so.  But  I  lived  mainly  (though 
not  entirely)  among  the  bie?i pe/iscoifs  people,  who  looked 
on  all  anti  -  governmental  manifestations  with  horror. 
Perhaps  the  restless  discontent  which  destroyed  Louis 
Philippe's  government  is  the  most  disheartening  circum- 
stance in  the  whole  course  of  recent  French  history.  That 
the  rule  of  Charles  Dix  should  have  occasioned  revolt  may 
be  regrettable,  but  is  not  a  matter  for  surprise.  But  that 
of  Louis  Philippe  Avas  not  a  stagnant  or  retrogressive  re- 
gime.  ^'- La  carrilre''''  was  very  undeniably  open  to  talent 
and  merit  of  every  description.  Material  well-being  was 
on  the  increase.  And  the  door  Avas  not  shut  against  any 
political  change  which  even  very  advanced  Liberalism,  of 
the  kind  consistent  with  order,  might  have  aspired  to. 
But  the  Liberalism  which  moved  France  Avas  not  of  that 
kind. 

One  of  my  most  charming  friends  of  those  days,  Rosa 
StCAvart,  Avho  after Avards  became  and  Avas  Avell  knoAvn  to 
literature  as  Madame  Blaze  du  Bury,  Avas  both  too  clever 
and  too  shrewd  an  observer,  as  Avell  as,  to  me  at  least,  too 
frank  to  pretend  any  of  the  assurance  Avhich  Avas  then  de 
inode.  She  saAV  Avhat  Avas  coming,  and  Avas  fully  per- 
suaded that  it  must  come.  I  hope  that  her  eye  may  rest 
on  this  testimony  to  her  perspicacity,  though  I  knoAV  not 
wlu'llier  she  still  graces  this  planet  with  her  very  pleasing 
presence.  For  as,  alas !  in  so  many  scores  of  other  in- 
stances, our  lives  have  drifted  apart,  and  it  is  many  years 
since  I  have  heard  of  her. 

One  excursion  I  specially  remember  in  connection  Avith 
that  autumn  Avas  partly,  I  think,  a  pedestrian  one,  to  Ami- 


AGAIN   IN   TARIS.  325 


ens  and  Beauvais,  made   in  cora]\any  with   the  W 

A of  wlion\  my  brother  sj^eaks  in  his  autobiography  ; 

which  I  mention  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  recording  my  tes- 
timony to  the  exactitude  of  his  description  of  that  very 
singular  individual  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  continual 
carefuhiess  necessitated  by  the  difficulty  of  avoiding  all 
cause  of  quarrel,  I  should  say  that  he  was  about  the  pleas- 
antest  travelling  companion  I  have  ever  knoAvn. 

In  the  beginning  of  April,  1841,  after  a  little  episode  of 
spring  Avandering  in  the  Tyrol  and  Bavaria  (in  the  course 
of  which  I  met  my  mother  at  the  chateau  of  her  very  old 
friend  the  Baroness  de  Zandt,  who  has  been  mentioned 
before,  and  was  now  living  somewhat  solitarily  in  her  huge 
house  in  its  huge  park  near  Bamberg),  my  mother  and  I 
started  for  Italy.  Neither  of  us  had  at  that  time  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  making  a  home  there.  The  object  of 
the  journey,  which  had  been  long  contemplated  by  my 
mother,  was  the  writing  of  a  book  on  Italy,  as  she  had  al- 
ready done  on  Paris  and  on  Vienna. 

Our  journey  was  a  prosperous  one  in  all  respects,  and 
our  flying  visit  to  Italy  was  very  })leasant.  My  mother's 
book  was  duly  written,  and  published  by  Mr.  Bentley  in 
1842.  But  the  "  Visit  to  Italy,"  as  the  work  was  entitled 
(with  justly  less  pretence  than  the  titles  of  either  of  its 
predecessors  had  i)Ut  forward,  was  in  truth  all  too  short. 
And  I  find  that  almost  all  of  the  huge  mass  of  varied  rec- 
ollcctions  which  are  connected  in  my  mind  with  Italy  and 
Italian  people  and  things  belong  to  my  second  "visit"  of 
nearly  half  a  century's  duration  ! 

We  made,  however,  several  pleasant  acquaintances  and 
some  fast  friends,  jirincipally  at  Florence,  and  thus  paved 
tlie  way,  although  little  intending  it  at  the  time,  for  our 
return  tliitlu-r. 

(Jur  visit  was  rendered  shorter  than  it  would  prolia- 
blv  otherwise  have  ])een  bv  mv  mother's  >tioii<r  <l(sire  to 
be  with  my  sister,  who  was  expecting  the  birth  of  her  lirst 
child  at  Penrith.  And  for  this  jturpose  we  left  Rome  in 
February,  \xi-J,  in  very  Bcvcre  weather.  Wr  crossed  the 
Mont  Cenis  in  sledges  —  which  to  me  was  a  very  accej)ta- 
blc  e.xj)erii'nce,  but  to  my  mother  was  one  which  nothing 


326  WHAT    I    REMEMBER. 

could  have  induced  her  to  face,  save  the  determination 
not  to  fail  her  child  at  her  need. 

Hosv  Avell  I  remember  hearing,  as  I  sat  in  the  banquette 
of  the  diligence  which  was  just  leaving  Susa  for  its  climb 
up  the  mountain  amid  the  snow,  then  rapidly  falling,  the 
driver  of  the  descending  diligence,  which  had  accom- 
plished its  work  and  was  just  about  entering  the  haven  of 
Susa,  sing  out  to  our  driver — "  Vous  allez  vous  mnuser  joli- 
ment  Id  hmtt,  croyez  moiP'' 

We  did  not,  however,  change  the  diligence  for  the 
sledges  till  we  came  to  the  descent  on  the  northern  side. 
But  as  we  made  our  slow  way  to  the  top  our  vehicle  was 
supported  from  time  to  time  on  either  side  by  twelve 
strapping  fellows,  who  put  their  shoulders  to  it. 

I  appreciated  during  that  journey,  though  I  was  glad  to 
see  the  mountain  in  its  winter  dress,  the  recommendation 
not  to  let  your  flight  be  in  the  winter. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

IN   IRELAND. — AT   ILFEACOMBE. — IN   FLORENCE. 

I  ACCOMPANIED  my  mother  to  Penrith,  and  forthwith  de- 
voted myself  heart  and  body  to  the  preparation  of  our 
new  liouse,  and  the  heantifying  of  the  very  pretty  paddock 
in  which  it  was  situated.  I  put  in  some  hundreds  of  trees 
and  shrubs  with  my  own  hands,  which  prospered  marvel- 
lously, and  have  become,  I  have  been  told,  most  luxuriant 
shrubberies.  I  was  bent  on  building  a  cloistered  walk  along 
the  entire  top  of  the  field,  which  Avonld  have  afforded  a 
charming  ambulatory  sheltered  from  the  north  winds  and 
from  the  rain,  and  would  have  commanded  the  most  love- 
ly views,  while  the  pillars  supporting  the  roof  would  have 
presented  admirable  places  for  a  world  of  flowering  climb- 
ing plants.  And  doubtless  I  should  have  achieved  it,  had 
we  remained  there,  liut  it  would  have  run  into  too  much 
money  to  be  undertaken  immediately  —  fortunately  ;  for, 
inasmuch  as  there  was  nothing  of  the  sort  in  all  that  coun- 
try-side, no  human  being  would  have  given  a  stiver  more 
for  the  house  when  it  came  to  be  sold,  and  the  next  owner 
would  probably  have  jiulled  it  down.  There  was  no  au- 
thority for  such  a  thing.  Had  it  been  suffered  to  remain 
it  would  probably  have  been  called  "Trollope's  Folly  !" 

.Subse<iuently,  but  not  immediately  after  we  left  it,  the 
}»lace  —  oddly  enough  I  forget  the  name  we  gave  it  —  be- 
came the  property  and  the  resilience  of  my  brother-in- 
law. 

Of  my  life  at  Penrith  I  need  add  nothing  to  the  jot- 
tings I  have  already  placed  before  the  readir  nn  the  occa- 
wion  of  my  first  visit  to  that  jilacc. 

^ly  brotiier,  already  a  very  dilfcri  iit  man  Ironi  what  he 
had  been  in  London,  came  from  his  Irish  district  to  visit 
us  tlu-ri' ;  and  I  returned  with  liini  to  Ireland, to  his  head- 
quarters at  lianagher  on  the  .Siiannon.     Neither  of  this 


328  WHAT   I    KEMEMBER. 

journey  need  I  say  much.  For  to  all  who  know  anything 
of  Ireland  at  the  present  day  —  and  who  does  not?  worse 
luck  ! — anything  I  might  write  would  seem  as  niJiil  ad 
rem  as  if  I  were  writing  of  an  island  in  the  Pacific.  I  re- 
member a  very  vivid  impression  that  occurred  to  me  on 
first  landing  at  Kingstown,  and  accompanied  me  during 
the  whole  of  my  stay  in  the  island,  to  the  effect  that  the 
striking  differences  in  everj^thing  that  fell  under  my  ob- 
servation from  what  I  had  left  behind  me  at  Holyhead 
were  fully  as  great  as  any  that  had  excited  my  interest 
when  first  landing  in  France. 

One  of  my  first  visits  was  to  my  brother's  chief.  He 
was  a  master  of  foxhounds  and  hunted  the  country.  And 
I  well  remember  my  astonishment  when  the  door  of  this 
gentleman's  residence  was  opened  to  me  by  an  extremely 
di'-ty  and  slatternly  bare-footed  and  bare-legged  girl.  I 
found  him  to  be  a  very  friendly  and  hosi^itable  good  fel- 
low, and  his  Avife  and  her  sister  very  pleasant  women.  I 
found  too  that  my  brother  stood  high  in  his  good  graces 
by  virtue  of  simply  having  taken  the  whole  Avork  and 
affairs  of  the  postal  district  on  his  shoulders.  The  re- 
jected of  St.  Martin's-le-Grand  was  already  a  very  valua- 
ble and  capable  ofticer. 

My  brother  gave  me  the  choice  of  a  run  to  the  Killeries 
or  to  Killarney.  We  could  not  manage  both.  I  chose 
the  former,  and  a  most  enjoyable  trip  we  had.  He  could 
not  leave  his  work  to  go  with  me,  but  was  to  join  me  sub- 
sequently, I  forget  wdiere,  in  the  west.  Meantime  he  gave 
me  a  letter  to  a  bachelor  friend  of  his  at  Clifden.  This 
gentleman  immediately  asked  me  to  dinner,  and  he  and  I 
dined  ttte-d-tcte.  Nevertheless,  he  thought  it  necessary  to 
apologize  for  the  appearance  of  a  very  fine  John  Dory  on 
the  table,  saying  that  he  had  been  himself  to  the  market 
to  get  a  turbot  for  me,  but  that  he  had  been  asked  half  a 
crown  for  a  not  very  large  one,  and  really  he  could  not 
give  such  absurd  prices  as  that ! 

Anthonv  duly  joined  me  as  })roposed,  and  we  had  a 
grand  walk  over  the  mountains  above  the  Killeries.  I 
don't  forget,  and  never  shall  forget — nor  did  Anthony 
ever  forcret ;  alas  !   that  w'c  shall  never  more  talk  over 


L\    IRELAND.  329 


that  day  acrain — the  truly  grand  spectacular  changes  from 
dark,  thick,  enveloping  cloud  to  brilliant  sunshine,  sud- 
denly revealing  all  the  mountains  and  the  wonderful  color- 
ing of  the  intertwining  sea  beneath  them,  and  then  back  to 
cloud  and  mist  and  drifting  sleet  again.  It  was  a  glorious 
walk.  We  returned  wet  to  the  skin  to  Joyce's  Inn,  and 
dined  on  roast  goose  and  whiskey  punch,  wrapped  in  our 
blankets  like  Roman  senators  ! 

One  other  scene  I  must  recall.  The  reader  will  hardly 
believe  that  it  occurred  in  Ireland.  There  was  an  election 
of  a  member  for  I  forget  what  county  or  borough,  and  my 
brother  and  I  went  to  the  hustings — the  only  time  I  ever  was 
at  an  election  in  her  majesty's  dominions.  What  were  the 
party  feelings,  or  the  part}'  colors,  I  utterly  forget.  It 
was 'merely  for  the  fun  of  the  thing  that  we  went  there. 
The  fun,  indeed,  was  fast  and  furious.  The  whole  scene 
on  the  hustings,  as  well  as  around  them,  seemed  to  me 
one  seething  mass  of  senseless  but  good-humored  hustling 
and  confusion.  Suddenly  in  the  midst  of  the  uproar  an 
ominous  cracking  was  heard,  and  in  the  next  minute  the 
hustings  swayed  and  came  down  with  a  crash,  heaping 
tof^ether  in  a  confused  mass  all  the  two  or  three  hundreds 
of  human  beings  who  were  on  the  huge  platform.  Some 
few  were  badly  hurt.  But  my  brother  and  I  being  young 
and  active,  and  tolerably  stout  fellows,  soon  extricated 
ourselves,  regained  our  legs,  and  found  that  we  were  none 
the  worse.  Then  we  began  to  look  to  our  neighbors. 
And  the  first  wlio  came  to  hand  was  a  priest,  a  little  man, 
who  was  lying  with  two  or  three  fellows  on  the  top  of 
him,  horri])ly  frightened  and  roaring  jjileously  for  help. 
So  Anthony  took  hold  of  one  oi  his  arms  and  I  of  ihc  oth- 
er, and  by  main  force  dragged  him  from  under  the  super- 
incumbent mass  of  humanity.  When  we  got  him  on  his 
legs  his  gratituilc  was  unbounded.  "  Tell  me  your  names," 
be  shouti<l,  "  that  Til  pray  for  ye  !"  We  told  him  laugh- 
inglv  that  wc  were  afraid  it  was  no  usf,  for  wc  were 
hen-tics.  "Tell  me  your  names,"  he  .shouted  again,  ''that 
I'll  pray  for  ye  all  the  more  !" 

I  wonder  whether  he  ever  did.     He  certainly  was  very 
much  in  earnest  while  the  fright  was  on  liini. 


330  WHAT    I   REMEMBER. 

Not  very  long  after  my  return  from  this  Irish  trip  we 
finally  left  Penrith,  on  the  third  of  April,  1843  ;  and  I 
trust  that  the  nymph  of  the  holy  well,  whose  spring  we 
had  disturbed,  was  appeased. 

My  mother  and  I  had  now  "  the  Avorld  before  us  where 
to  choose."  She  had  work  in  hand,  and  more  in  perspec- 
tive, but  it  was  work  of  a  nature  that  might  be  done  in 
one  ])lace  as  Avell  as  in  another.  So  when  "Carlton  Hill" 
(all  of  a  sudden  the  name  comes  back  to  my  memory) 
was  sold,  we  literally  stood  with  no  impedimenta  of  any 
sort  save  our  trunks,  and  absolutely  free  to  turn  our  faces 
in  Avhatsoever  direction  we  pleased. 

AVhat  we  did  in  the  first  instance  was  to  turn  them  to 
the  house  of  our  old  and  well-beloved  cousin,  Fanny  Bent, 
at  Exeter.  There  after  a  few  days  we  persuaded  her  to 
accompany  us  to  Ilfracombe,  where  we  spent  some  very 
enjoyable  summer  weeks.  What  I  remember  chiefly  in 
connection  with  that  pleasant  time  was  idling  rambles 
over  the  rocks  and  the  Capstone  Hill,  in  company  with 
Mrs.  Coker  and  her  sister  Miss  Aubrey,  the  daughters  of 

that  INIajor  A who  needs  to  the  whist-playing  Avorld 

no  further  commemoration.  The  former  of  them  was  the 
wife  and  mother  of  Wykehamists  (founder's  kin),  and  both 
were  very  charming  women.  Ilfracombe  Avas  in  those 
days  an  unpretending  sort  of  fishing-village.  There  was 
no  huge  Ilfracombe  Hotel,  and  the  Capstone  Hill  was  not 
sti'cwed  with  Avhitey-brown  biscuit  bags  and  the  fragments 
of  bottles,  nor  continually  vocal  with  nigger  minstrels  and 
ranting  preachers.  The  Royal  Clarence  did  exist  in  the 
little  town,  whether  under  that  name  or  not,  I  forget. 
But  I  can  testify  from  experience,  acquired  some  forty 
years  afterwards,  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  ClemoAV  now  keep 
there  one  of  the  best  inns  of  its  class  that  I,  no  incom- 
petent expert  in  such  matters,  know  in  all  England. 

Then,  when  the  autumn  days  began  to  draw  in,  we  re- 
turned to  Exeter,  and  many  a  long  consultation  was  held 
by  my  mother  and  I,  sallying  forth  from  Fanny  Bent's 
hospitable  house  for  a  tete-d-ttte  stroll  on  Northernhay,  on 
the  question  of  "  What  next  ?" 

It  turned  out  to  be  a  more  momentous  question  than 


AT   ILFRACOMBE.  331 

we  cither  of  us  imagined  it  to  be  at  the  time  ;  for  the 
decision  of  it  involved  the  shape  and  form  of  the  entire 
future  life  of  one  of  us,  and  still  more  important  modifica- 
tion of  the  future  life  of  the  other.  Dresden  was  talked 
of.  Rome  was  considered.  Paris  was  thought  of.  Venice 
was  discussed.  No  one  of  them  was  proposed  as  a  future 
permanent  home.  Finally  Florence  came  on  the  tapis. 
We  had  liked  it  much,  and  had  formed  some  much-valued 
friendships  there.  It  was  supposed  to  be  economical  as  a 
place  to  live  in,  which  was  one  main  point.  For  our  plan 
was  to  make  for  ourselves  for  two  or  three  years  a  home 
and  way  of  living  sufficiently  cheap  to  admit  of  combin- 
ing with  it  large  plans  of  summer  travel.  And  eventu- 
ally Florence  was  fixed  on. 

As  for  my  mother,  it  turned  out  that  she  was  then  se- 
lecting her  last  and  final  home — though  the  end  was  not, 
thank  God,  for  many  a  long  year  yet.  As  for  me,  the 
decision  arrived  at  during  those  walks  on  Exeter  Xorthern- 
hay  was  more  momentous  still.  For  I  Avas  choosing  the 
road  that  led  not  only  to  my  home  for  the  next  balf-cen- 
tury  nearly,  but  to  two  marriages,  both  of  them  so  happy 
in  all  respects  as  rarely  to  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  one  and 
the  same  man. 

How  little  we  either  of  us,  ray  mother  and  I,  saw  into 
the  future — beyond  a  few  immediate  inches  before  our 
noses  !  Truly  prwJens  futitri  temporis  exituin  calif/inosd 
nofti',  premit  JJcus !  And  when  I  hear  talk  of  "c(jnduct 
making  fate,"  I  often  think — humbly  and  gratefully,  I 
trust;  marvelling,  certainly  —  how  far  it  could  have  d 
2)riori  seemed  probablu  that  the  conduct  of  a  man  who, 
without  either  (rs  in  present i,  or  any  very  visible  jirospcct 
of  crs  in  J'tifxro,  turns  aside  from  all  the  beaten  paths  of 
professional  industry  should  have  led  him  to  a  long  life 
of  happiness  and  content,  hardly  to  be  surpassed,  and,  I 
should  fear,  rarely  eiiuallcd.  Dens  nobis  Jkvc  otia  fecit! 
—  iJens,  by  the  intromission  of  one  rarely  good  mother, 
and  tw(j  rarely  good,  and  I  may  a<ld  rarely  gifted,  wives! 

Not  that  I  woidd  have  the  reader  translate  "  ofi'r "  ]»y 
idleness.  I  have  written  enough  to  show  that  niv  life 
hitherto  had  been  a  full  and  active  one.    And  it  continued 


332  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

ill  Italy  to  be  an  industrious  one.  Translate  the  word 
rather  into  "independence."  For  I  worked  at  work  that 
1  liked,  and  did  no  task-work.  Nevertheless,  I  would  not 
wish  to  be  an  evil  exemplar,  vitlis  imitabile,  and  I  don't 
recommend  you,  dear  boys,  to  do  as  I  did.  I  have  been 
quite  abnormally  fortunate. 

Well,  we  thought  that  we  were  casting  the  die  of  fate 
on  a  very  subordinate  matter,  while,  lo  !  it  was  cast  for 
us  by  the  Supernal  Powers  after  a  more  far-reaching  and 
overruling  fashion. 

So  on  the  2d  of  September,  1843,  we  turned  our  faces 
southward  and  left  London  for  Florence. 

We  became  immediately  on  arriving  in  Firenze  la  gen- 
tile (after  a  little  tour  in  Savoy,  introduced  as  an  interlude 
after  our  locomotive  rambling  fashion)  the  guests  of  Lady 
Buhver,  who  then  inhabited  in  the  Palazzo  Passerini  an 
a})artnient  far  larger  than  she  needed,  till  we  could  find  a 
lodging  for  ourselves. 

We  had  become  acquainted  with  Lady  Bulwer  in  Paris, 
and  a  considerable  intimacy  arose  between  her  and  my 
mother,  whose  nature  was  especially  calculated  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  good  qualities  which  Lady  Bulwer  un- 
questionably possessed  in  a  high  degree.  She  was  brill- 
iant, witty,  generous,  kind,  joyous,  good-natured,  and  very 
handsome.  But  she  was  wholly  governed  by  impulse  and 
unreasoning  prejudice  ;  though  good-natured,  was  not  al- 
Avays  good-humored  ;  was  totally  devoid  of  prudence  or 
judgment,  and  absolutely  incapable  of  estimating  men 
aright.  She  used  to  think  me,  for  instance,  little  short  of 
an  admirable  Crichton  ! 

Of  course,  all  the  above-rehearsed  good  qualities  were, 
or  were  calculated  to  be,  immediately  perceived  and  ap- 
preciated, while  the  less  pleasant  specialties  which  accom- 
panied them  were  of  a  kind  to  become  more  perceptible 
only  in  close  intimacy.  And  while  no  intimacy  ever  les- 
sened that  regard  of  my  mother  and  myself  that  had  been 
won  by  the  first,  it  was  not  long  before  we  were  both,  my 
mother  especially,  vexed  by  exhibitions  of  the  second. 

As,  for  instance  :  Lady  Bulwer  had  for  some  days  been 
complaining  of  feeling  unwell,  and  was  evidently  suffer- 


IN  FLORENCE.  333 

ing.  My  mother  urged  her  to  have  some  medical  advice, 
whereupon  she  turned  on  her  very  angrily,  while  the  tears 
started  to  her  beautiful  eyes,  and  said,  "  How  can  you  tell 
me  to  do  any  such  thing,  when  you  know  that  I  have  not 
a  guinea  for  the  purpose  ?"  (She  was  frequently  wont  to 
complain  of  her  poverty.)  But  she  had  hardly  got  the 
words  out  of  her  mouth  when  the  servant  entered  the 
room  saying  that  the  silversmith  was  at  the  door  asking 
that  the  account  which  he  laid  on  the  table  might  be  paid. 
The  account  (which  Lady  Bulwer  made  no  attempt  to  con- 
ceal, for  concealment  of  anything  was  not  at  all  in  her 
line)  was  for  a  pair  of  small  silver  spurs  and  an  orna- 
mented silver  collar  which  she  had  ordered  a  week  or  two 
previously  for  the  ceremonial  knighting  of  her  little  dog 
Tafg! 

On  another  occasion  a  large  party  of  us  were  to  visit 
the  IJoboli  Gardens.  It  was  a  very  hot  da}^,  and  we  had 
to  climb  the  hill  to  the  upper  part  of  the  gardens,  from 
whence  the  view  over  Florence  and  the  Val  d'Arno  is  a 
charming  one.  But  the  hill,  as  those  who  have  been  at 
Florence  will  not  have  forgotten,  is  not  only  an  extremely 
steep,  but  a  shadeless  one.  The  broad  i)ath  runs  between 
two  wide  margins  of  turf,  Avhich  are  enclosed  on  either 
side  by  thick  but  not  very  high  shrubberies.  The  party 
sorted  themselves  into  couples,  and  the  men  addressed 
themselves  to  facilitatincT  as  best  they  micfht  the  not  slicrht- 
ly  fatiguing  work  before  the  ladies.  It  fell  to  my  lot  to 
give  Lady  Bulwc-r  my  arm.  liefore  long  we  were  the  last 
and  most  lagging  couple  on  the  patli.  It  was  har<l  work, 
but  I  did  my  best,  and  flattered  myself  that  my  companion, 
despite  the  radical  moisture  which  she  was  copiously  los- 
ing, was  in  high  good-humor,  as  indeed  she  seemed  to  be, 
when  suddenly,  without  a  word  of  warning,  she  dashed 
from  the  path,  threw  herself  prone  among  the  bushes,  and 
burst  into  an  uncontrollable  fit  of  sobs  an<l  weeping.  I 
was  horrified  with  ama/ement.  What  had  I  done,  or  what 
left  undone?  It  was  long  bef<ire  I  could  get  a  word  out 
of  her.  At  last  she  artienlated  amid  her  sobs,  "It  is  too 
hot !  It  is  cruel  to  bring  one  liere  !"  Yes,  it  was  too  hot ; 
but  that  was  all.    Fortunately  I  was  not  the  cruel  liringer. 


334  WIIAT   I   REMEMBER. 

I  consoled  her  to  the  best  of  my  po-\ver,  and  induced  her 
to  Avii)e  her  eyes.  I  dabbled  a  handkerchief  in  a  neigh- 
boring fountain  for  her  to  wash  her  streaked  face,  and 
eventually  I  got  her  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  Avhere  all  the 
others  had  long  since  arrived. 

The  incident  was  entirely  characteristic  of  her.  She 
was  furiously  angry  with  all  things  in  heaven  above  and 
on  the  earth  below  because  she  was  at  the  moment  incon- 
venienced. 

Here  is  the  beginning  of  a  letter  from  her  of  a  date 
some  months  anterior  to  the  Boboli  adventure  : 

"  Illustrissimo  Signor  Tommaso "  (that  was  the  usual 
style  of  her  address  to  me),  "as  your  book  is  just  out  yoii 
must  feel  quite  en  train  for  puffs  of  any  descri])tion. 
Therefore  I  send  you  the  best  I  have  seen  for  a  long  Avhile, 
'La  Physiologic  du  Fumeur.'  But  even  if  you  don't  like 
it,  ilonH  put  it  in  your  ])ipe  and  smoke  it.  Vide  Joseph 
)  ume. 

A  little  subsequently  she  writes  :  "  Signor  Tommaso, 
the  only  revenge  I  shall  take  for  your  lecture  "  (probably 
on  the  matter  of  some  outrageous  extravagance)  "  is  not 
to  call  you  illustrissimo  and  not  to  send  you  an  illuminated 
postilion  "  (a  previous  letter  having  been  ornamented  with 
such  a  decoration  at  the  top  of  the  sheet),  "but  let  you 
find  your  way  to  Venice  in  the  dark  as  you  can,  and  then 
and  there,  '  On  the  Rialto  I  will  rate  you,'  and,  being  a 
man,  you  know  there  is  no  chance  of  my  overrating  j'ou." 
The  following  passage  from  the  same  letter  refers  to  some 
negotiations  with  which  she  had  intrusted  me  relative  to 
some  illustrations  she  was  bent  on  having  in  a  forthcoming 
}>ook  she  was  about  to  publish:  "As  for  the  immortal 
Cruikshank,  tell  him  that  I  am  sure  the  mighty  genius 
which  conceived  Lord  Batenian  could  not  refuse  to  give 
any  lady  the  v:erry  best,  and  if  he  does  I  shall  pass  the  rest 
of  my  life  registering  a  similar  vxnc  to  that  of  the  fair 
Sophia,  and  exclaiming,  'I  vish,  George  Cruikshank,  as 
you  vas  mine.' " 

The  rest  of  the  long,  closely-written,  four-paged  letter  is 
an  indiscriminate  and  bitter,  though  joking  attack,  upon 
the^  race  of  publishers.     She  calls  Mr.  Colburn  an  "era- 


IN   FLORENCE.  335 

bodied  shiver,"  which  will  bring  a  smile  to  the  lips  of  those 
— few,  I  fear — who  remember  the  little  man. 

Here  are  some  extracts  from  a  still  longer  letter  written 
to  my  mother  much  about  the  same  time  :  "  I  hear  Lady 

S lias  committed  another  novel,  called  '  The  Three 

IVers,'  no  doubt  Vun  pire  que  V autre!  ...  I  have  a  great 
many  kind  messages  to  you  from  that  ver}''  charming  per- 
son Madame  Recamier,  who  fully  intends  meeting  you  at 
Venice  with  Chateaubriand  in  October,  for  so  she  told  me 
on  Sunday.  I  met  her  at  Miss  Clarke's  some  time  ago, 
and  as  I  am  a  bad  pusher  I  am  happy  to  say  she  asked  to 
be  introduced  to  me,  and  Avas,  thanks  to  you,  my  kind 
friend !  She  pressed  me  to  go  and  see  her,  which  I  have 
done  two  or  three  times,  and  am  going  to  do  again  at  her 
amiable  request  on  Thursday.  I  think  that  her  fault  is 
that  she  Hatters  a  little  too  much.  And  flattery  to  one 
whose  cars  have  so  long  been  excoriated  by  abuse  does  not 
sound  safe.  However,  all  is  right  when  she  speaks  of  you. 
And  the  point  she  most  eulogized  in  you  is  that  which  I 
have  heard  many  a  servile  coward  who  could  never  go  and 
do  likewise  "  [no  indication  is  to  be  found  either  in  this 
letter  or  elsewhere  to  whom  she  alludes]  "  select  for  the 
same  purpose,  namely,  your  straightforward,  unflinching, 
courageous  nitegrity.  .  .  .  Balzac  is  furious  at  having  his 
new  l)lay  suppressed  by  Thiers,  in  which  Arnauld  acted 
Louis  Philippe,  wig  and  all,  to  the  life  ;  but,  as  I  said  to 
M.  Dupin,  '  Cest  tout  naturel  que  M.  Thiers  ne  permetterait 
d2yersoiine  dejouer  Lovis  Philipj)e  que  lui-meme.'' .  .  .  There 
is  a  wonderful  ]>ointer  here  that  has  been  advertised  for 
sale  for  twelve  hundred  francs.  A  frii-nd  of  mine  went 
to  see  him,  and,  after  mounting  up  to  a  little  garret  about 
the  size  of  a  chessboard,  au  vinfjt-septihne,  he  interrogated 
the  owner  as  to  the  dog's  education  and  acquirements,  to 
which  the  man  re])lied,  ^  Pour  f(f,  monsieur,  c^est  iffi  rhien 
jmrfait.  .A;  lui  ni  tnut  ap/iriii  inoi-inCme  (hnis  ma  chani- 
hrr.^*  After  this  my  friend  di<l  not  sing  'Together  let  us 
ranire   the   liehls  !'  .  .  .  Last   week    I   met  Colonel   Potter 


•  "  As  for  tliat,  sir,  the  dog  i3  pcrfcft.    I  liuvc  myself  Inuglit  him  cvcry- 
lliiiig  in  my  own  r<x)in  /'' 


336  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

]\I'Qnoon,  who  was  warm  in  liis  praises  of  yon,  and  the 
groat  irooil  your  ']\licliael  Arnistron<j^'  "  (tlie  factory  story) 
"  liad  done.  .  .  .  Last  Thursday  despatches  arrived,  and 
Lord  Granville  had  to  start  for  London  at  a  moment's 
notice.  I  was  in  hoi)es  this  beastly  ministry  were  out ! 
But  no  such  luck  !  For  they  are  a  compound  of  glue, 
sticking-])laster,  wax,  and  vice — the  most  adhesive  of  all 
known  mixtures." 

Before  concluding  my  recollections  of  Rosina,  Lady 
Lytton  Bulwer,  I  think  it  right  to  say  that  I  consider  my- 
self to  have  perfectly  sufficient  grounds  for  feeling  certain 
that  the  whispers  which  were  circulated  in  a  cowardly 
and  malignant  fashion  against  the  correctness  of  her  con- 
duct as  a  woman  were  wholly  unfounded.  Her  failings 
and  tendency  to  failings  lay  in  a  quite  different  direction. 
I  knew  perfectly  well  the  person  whose  name  was  men- 
tioned scandalously  in  connection  with  hers,  and  knew  the 
whole  history  of  the  relationship  that  existed  between 
them.  The  gentleman  in  question  was  for  years  Lady 
Bulwer's  constant  and  steadfast  friend.  It  is  quite  true 
that  he  Avould  fain  have  been  something  more,  but  true 
also  that  his  friendship  survived  the  absolute  rejection  of 
all  warmer  sentiments  by  the  object  of  it.  It  was  almost 
a  matter  of  course  that  such  a  w^oman  as  Lady  Bulwer, 
living  unprotected  in  the  midst  of  such  a  society  as  that 
of  Florence  in  those  days,  should  be  so  slandered.  And 
were  it  not  that  there  were  very  few  if  any  persons  at  the 
time,  and  I  think  certainly  not  one  still  left,  able  to  speak 
upon  the  subject  with  such  conoiaissance  de  cause  as  I  can, 
I  should  not  have  alluded  to  it. 

She  was  an  admirably  charming  companion  before  the 
footlights  of  the  world's  stage — not  so  uniformly  charm- 
ing behind  its  scenes,  for  her  um-easonableness  always  and 
her  occasional  violence  were  very  difficult  to  deal  with. 
But  she  was,  as  Dickens'  poor  Jo  says  in  "  Bleak  House," 
"  worry  good  to  me  !" 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

IX    FLOREXCE. 

After  some  little  time  and  trouble  we  found  an  apart- 
mt'Ut  in  the  I*alazzo  Berti,  in  the  ominously  named  Via 
dei  Malcontenti.  It  was  so  called  because  it  was  at  one 
time  the  road  to  the  Florentine  Tyburn.  Our  house  was 
the  one  next  to  the  east  end  of  the  church  of  Santa  Croce. 
Our  rooms  looked  on  to  a  large  garden,  and  were  pleasant 
enoufich.  We  witnessed  from  our  windows  the  buildini; 
of  the  new  steeple  of  Santa  Croce,  which  was  completed 
before  we  left  the  house. 

It  was  built  in  great  measure  by  an  Englishman,  a  ]Mr. 
Sioane,  a  fervent  Catholic,  who  was  at  that  time  one  of 
the  best-known  figures  in  the  English  colony  at  Florence. 

lie  was  a  large  contributor  to  the  recently  completed 
facade  of  the  Duomo  in  Florence,  and  to  many  other  be- 
nevolent and  pietistic  good  works.  He  had  been  tutor  in 
the  Russian  Boutourlin  family,  and  when  acting  in  that 
ca])acity  had  been  taken,  by  reason  of  his  geological  ac- 
quirements, to  see  some  c()p))er  mines  in  the  Volterra 
district,  which  the  grand  duke  had  conceded  to  acomjiany 
under  whose  administration  they  were  going  utterly  to 
the  bad.  Sioane  came,  saw,  and  eventually  conquered. 
In  conjuiH'tiun  with  Horace  Hall,  the  theti  well-kiiDwii 
and  jiopular  partner  in  tl»e  bank  of  Signor  Kinanucie 
Fenzi  (one  of  whose  sons  niarrie<l  an  English  wife,  and  is 
still  my  very  good  an<l  forty-years-uM  fiii  iid),  he  obtained 
a  new  concession  of  the  mines  from  the  grand  duke  on 
very  favf^irablc  terms,  ami  by  the  time  I  made  his  ai<|uaint- 
ance  h.id  b('ci)in<'  a  wc.'iltliy  man.  I  fancy  the  Halls,  Hor- 
ace and  his  mucli-cstccmcil  brother  Alfred  (who  survived 
hini  nianv  years,  and  was  the  father  of  a  family,  one  of 
the  most  respected  and  jtopular  of  the  English  colony  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  my  Florence  life),  subsequently  consid- 
15 


338  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

ercd  themselves  to  liavo  been  shouldered  out  of  the  enter- 
pi'ise  by  a  certain  unhandsome  treatment  on  the  part  of 
the  fortunate  tutor.  What  may  have  been  the  exact  his- 
tory of  the  matter  I  do  not  know.  But  I  do  know  that 
Sloane  always  remained  on  very  intimate  terms  with  the 
grand  duke,  and  was  a  power  in  the  inmost  circles  of  the 
ecclesiastic  world. 

He  used  to  give  great  dinners  on  Friday,  the  principal 
object  of  which  seemed  to  be  to  show  how  magnificent  a 
feast  could  be  given  without  infringing  by  a  hair's-breadth 
the  rule  of  the  Church.  And  admirably  he  succeeded  in 
showing  how  entirely  the  spirit  and  intention  of  the 
Church  in  prescribing  a  fast  could  be  made  of  none  ef- 
fect by  a  skilfully  managed  observance  of  the  letter  of 
its  law. 

The  only  opportunity  I  ever  had  of  conversing  with 
Cardinal  Wiseman  was  in  Casa  Sloane.  And  what  I 
chiefly  remember  of  his  eminence  was  his  evident  annoy- 
ance at  the  \iltra-demonstrative  zeal  of  the  female  portion 
of  the  mixed  Catholic  and  Protestant  assembly,  who  looulcl 
kneel  and  kiss  his  hand.  A  schoolmaster  meeting  boys  in 
society,  who,  instantly  on  his  appearance  should  begin  un- 
buttoning their  brace  buttons  behind,  would  hardly  appre- 
ciate the  recognition  more  gratefully. 

Within  a  very  few  weeks  of  our  establishment  in  Casa 
Berti  my  mother's  home  became,  as  usual,  a  centre  of  at- 
traction and  pleasant  intercoui'se,  and  her  weekly  Friday 
receptions  were  always  crowded.  If  I  were  to  tell  every- 
thing of  what  I  remember  in  connection  with  those  days, 
I  should  produce  such  a  book  as  non  dt,  non  homines,  non 
concessere  volmnnm — a  book  such  as  neither  publishers, 
nor  readers,  nor  the  columns  of  the  critical  journals  would 
tolerate,  and  should  fill  my  pages  with  names,  which,  how- 
ever interesting  they  may  still  be  for  me,  would  hardly 
have  any  interest  for  the  public,  however  gentle  or  pensive. 

One  specialty,  and  that  not  a  pleasant  one,  of  a  life  so 
protracted  as  mine  has  been  in  the  midst  of  such  a  society 
as  that  of  Florence  in  those  days,  is  the  enormous  quan- 
tity of  the  names  which  turn  the  tablets  of  memory  into 
j>alimpsests,  not  twice,  but  fifty  times  written  over  ! — un- 


IX   FLORENCE.  339 

pleasant,  not  from  the  thronofing  i?i  of  tlie  motley  company, 
but  from  the  inevitable  passing  out  of  them  from  the  field 
of  vision.  One's  recollections  come  to  resemble  those  of 
the  spectator  of  a  phantasmagoric  show.  Processions  of 
heterogeneous  figures,  almost  all  of  thera  connected  in 
some  way  or  other  with  more  or  less  pleasant  memories, 
troop  across  the  magic  circle  of  light,  only,  alack  !  to  van- 
ish into  uttermost  night  when  they  pass  bej'ond  its  limit. 
Of  course  all  this  is  inevitable  from  the  migratory  nature 
of  such  a  society  as  that  which  was  jjathered  tos^ether  on 
the  banks  of  the  Ariio. 

Some  fixtures — comparatively  fixtures — of  course  there 
were,  who  gave  to  our  moving  quicksand-like  society  some 
degree  of  cohesion. 

Chief  among  these  was,  of  course,  the  British  minister — 
at  the  time  of  our  arrival  in  Florence,  and  many  years 
afterwards  —  Lord  Holland.  A  happier  instance  of  the 
right  man  in  the  right  place  could  hardly  be  met  with. 
At  his  great  omnium-fjatherum  dinners  and  receptions — 
his  hospitality  was  of  the  most  catholic  and  generous  sort 
— both  he  and  Lady  Holland  (how  pretty  she  then  was 
there  is  her  very  clever  portrait  by  Watts  to  testify)  never 
failed  to  win  golden  opinions  from  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  and  women.  And  in  the  smaller  circle,  which  as- 
sembled in  their  rooms  yet  more  frequently,  they  showed 
to  yet  greater  advantage,  for  Lord  Holland  was  one  of  the 
most  amusing  talkers  I  ever  knew. 

Of  course  many  of  those  who  ought  to  have  been  grate- 
ful for  their  admission  to  the  minister's  large  receptions 
were  discontented  at  not  being  invited  to  the  smaller  ones. 
And  it  was  by  some  of  these  malcontents  with  more  wit 
tiiaii  reas(»n  that  Laily  Hulhuul  was  accused  of  receivin<r 
in  two  very  distinct  fashions — en  vtinage  and  en  mena- 
gerie. The  mot  was  a  successful  one,  and  n(»body  was  mon- 
amused  by  it  than  the  .ynrituelle  lady  of  whom  it  was  said. 
It  was  too  ha])py  a  mnt  not  to  have  been  stolen  by  divers 
pilferers  of  such  articles,  and  adapti'd  to  other  j>ersons 
and  oilier  occasions,  lint  it  was  originally  spoken  of  the 
time,  place,  and  person  here  stated  to  have  been  the  ol)ject 
of  it. 


340  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

Generally,  in  such  societies  in  foreign  capitals,  a  fruit- 
ful source  of  jealousy  antl  discord  is  found  in  the  neces- 
sary selection  of  those  to  be  presented  at  the  court  of  the 
reigning  sovereign.  But  this,  as  far  as  I  remember,  was 
avoided  in  those  halcyon  days  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
presenting  all  who  desired  it.  And  that  Lord  Holland 
teas  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  as  regards  this  matter 
the  followinsr  anecdote  will  show. 

AVhen  Mr.  Hamilton  became  British  minister  at  Flor- 
ence, it  was  announced  that  his  intention  was,  for  the 
avoiding  of  all  trouble  and  jealousy  on  the  subject,  to  ad- 
here strictly  to  the  proper  and  recognized  rule.  He  would 
present  everybody  and  anybody  who  had  been  presented 
at  home,  and  nobody  who  had  not  been  so  presented. 
And  he  commenced  his  administration  on  these  lines,  and 
the  grand  duke's  receptions  at  the  Pitti  became  notably 
w^eeded.  But  this  had  not  gone  on  for  more  than  two  or 
three  weeks  before  it  was  whispered  in  the  minister's  ear 
that  the  grand  duke  would  be  pleased  if  he  were  less  strict 
in  the  matter  of  his  presentations,  "  Oh  !"  said  Hamilton, 
"  that's  what  he  wants  !  A  la  bonne  heicre  !  He  shall  have 
them  all,  rag,  tag,  and  bobtail."  And  so  we  returned  to 
the  Saticnna  rerjna  of  "  the  good  old  times,"  and  the  duke 
was  credibly  reported  to  have  said  that  he  "  kept  the  worst 
drawing-room  in  Europe."  But,  of  course,  his  highness 
was  thinking  of  the  pockets  of  his  liege  Florentine  letters 
of  apartments  and  tradesmen,  and  was  anxious  only  to 
make  his  city  a  favorite  place  of  resort  for  the  gold-bring- 
ing foreigners  from  that  distant  and  barbarous  western 
isle.  The  pope,  you  see,  had  the  pull  in  the  matter  of 
gorgeous  Church  ceremonies,  but  he  couldn't  have  the 
fertilizing  barbarians  dancing  in  the  Vatican  once  a  week  ! 

One  more  anecdote  I  must  find  room  for,  because  it  is 
curiously  illustrative  in  several  ways  of  those  tempi  pa  ssati, 
che  non  tornano  piiX.  Florence  was  full  of  rpfiigees  from 
the  political  rigors  of  the  papal  government,  who  had  for 
some  time  past  found  there  an  unmolested  refuge.  But 
the  aspect  of  the  times  was  becoming  more  and  more 
alarming  to  Austria,  and  the  TJuchmi,  as  we  called  the 
sovereigns  of  Modena  and  Parma  ;  and  pressure  was  put 


IN  FLORENCE.  341 

on  the  duke  by  the  pontifical  government  insisting  on  the 
demand  that  these  refugees  shoukl  be  given  up  by  Tus- 
cany. Easy-going  Tuscany,  not  yet  in  any  wise  alarmed 
for  herself,  fought  off  the  demand  for  a  while,  but  was  at 
last  driven  to  notify  her  intention  of  acceding  to  it.  It 
was  in  tliese  circumstances  that  Massino  d'  Azeglio  came 
to  me  one  morning,  in  the  garden  of  our  house  in  the  Via 
del  Giglio — the  same  in  which  the  poet  ]\Iilton  lodged 
when  he  was  in  Florence — to  which  we  had  by  that  time 
moved,  and  told  me  that  he  wanted  me  to  do  something 
for  him.  Of  course  I  professed  all  readiness,  and  he  went 
on  to  tell  me  of  the  critical  and  dangerous  position  in 
which  the  refugees  of  whom  I  have  spoken  were  placed, 
and  said  that  I  must  go  to  Lord  Holland  and  ask  him  to 
give  them  British  passports.  He  urged  that  nothing  could 
be  easier,  that  no  objection  could  possibly  be  taken  to  it; 
that  the  Tuscan  government  was  by  no  means  desirous  of 
giving  up  these  men,  and  would  only  be  too  glad  to  get 
out  of  it ;  that  England  both  at  Malta  and  in  the  Ionian 
Islands  had  plenty  of  Italian  subjects — and,  in  short,  I 
undertook  tlie  mission,  I  confess  witli  very  small  hopes  of 
success.  Lonl  Holland  laughed  aloud  when  I  told  my 
tale,  and  said  he  thought  it  was  about  the  most  audacious 
request  that  had  ever  been  made  to  a  British  minister. 
But  he  en<led  by  grantinix  it.  Doubtless  he  knew  very 
well  the  truth  of  wliat  d'  Azeglio  had  stated — that  the 
Tuscan  government  would  be  much  too  well  pleased  to 
ask  any  questions  ;  and  the  passports  were  given. 

It  was  not  loner  after  our  estalilishment  in  the  Via  del 
Malcontenti  that  a  great  disaster  came  upon  Florence  and 
its  inhabitants  and  guests.  Arno  was  not  in  the  habit  of 
following  the  evil  example  of  the  Tiber  by  treating  Flor- 
ence as  the  latter  so  fre<iuently  did  Home.  But  in  the 
winter  of  the  year  1RI4  a  terrible  an<l  uni)recedonted  flood 
came.  The  rain  fell  in  such  torrents  all  one  niglit  that 
it  was  feared  that  the  Arno,  already  much  swollen,  w<»uld 
not  be  able  to  (-arry  off  the  waters  with  sulhcieiit  rapidity. 
I  went  out  early  in  the  morning  before  l)reakfas(,  in  com- 
pany with  a  younger  brotlu-r  of  ihr  Dr.  Nicholson  of  Prn- 
ritli  whom  I  have  mentioneil,  wlm  happened  to  l)e  visiting 


342  WHAT   1    REMEMBER. 

US.  We  climbed  to  the  top  of  Giotto's  tower,  and  saw  at 
once  the  terrible  extent  and  very  serious  character  of  the 
misfortune.  One  third,  at  least,  of  Florence  was  under 
water,  and  the  flood  was  rapidly  rising.  Coming  down 
from  our  lofty  observatory,  we  made  our  way  to  the 
"  Lung'  Arno,"  as  the  river  quays  are  called.  And  there 
the  sight  M'as  truly  a  terrible  and  a  magnificent  one.  The 
river,  extending  in  one  turbid,  yellow,  swirling  mass  from 
the  walls  of  the  houses  on  the  quay  on  one  side  to  those 
of  the  houses  opposite,  was  bringing  down  with  it  frag- 
ments of  timber,  carcasses  of  animals,  large  quantities  of 
hay  and  straw — and  amid  the  Avreck  we  saw  a  cradle  with 
a  child  in  it,  safely  navigating  the  tumbling  waters  !  It 
was  drawn  to  the  window  of  a  house  by  throwing  a  line 
over  it,  and  the  infant  navigator  was  none  the  worse. 

But  very  great  fears  were  entertained  for  the  very  an- 
cient  Ponte  Vecchio,  with  its  load  of  silversmiths'  and 
jewellers'  shops,  turning  it  from  a  bridge  into  a  street — 
the  only  remaining  example  in  Europe,  I  believe,  of  a 
fashion  of  construction  once  common.  The  water  con- 
tinued to  rise  as  we  stood  watching  it.  Less  than  a  foot 
of  space  yet  remained  between  the  surface  of  the  flood 
and  the  keystone  of  the  highest  arch  ;  and  it  was  thought 
that  if  the  water  rose  sufticiently  to  beat  against  the  solid 
superstructure  of  the  bridge,  it  must  have  been  swept 
away.  But  at  last  came  the  cry  from  those  who  were 
watching  it  close  at  hand,  that  for  the  last  five  minutes 
the  surface  had  been  stationary  ;  and  in  another  half-hour 
it  was  followed  by  the  announcement  that  the  flood  had 
begun  to  decrease.  Then  there  was  an  immense  sensa- 
tion of  relief  ;  for  the  Florentines  love  their  old  bridge  ; 
and  the  crowd  began  to  disperse. 

All  this  time  I  had  not  had  a  mouthful  of  breakfast, 
and  we  betook  ourselves  to  Doney's  hottega  to  get  a  cup 
of  coffee  before  going  home.  But  when  we  attempted 
this  we  found  that  it  was  more  easily  said  than  done.  The 
Via  dei  Malcontent!  as  well  as  the  whole  of  the  Piazza  di 
Santa  Croce  was  some  five  feet  under  water.  We  suc- 
ceeded, however,  in  getting  aboard  a  large  boat,  which 
was  already  engaged  in  carrying  bread  to  the  people  in 


IX   FLORENCE.  343 

the  most  deeply  flooded  parts  of  the  town.  But  all  dith- 
culty  was  not  over.  Of  course  the  street  door  of  the  Pa- 
lazzo Berti  was  shut,  and  no  earthly  power  could  open  it. 
Our  apartment  was  on  the  second  floor.  Our  landlord's 
family  occupied  the  primo.  Of  course  I  could  get  in  at 
their  windows  and  then  go  up-stairs.  And  we  had  a  lad- 
der in  tlie  boat ;  but  the  mounting  to  the  first  floor  by 
this  ladder,  placed  on  the  little  deck  of  the  boat,  as  she 
was  rocked  by  the  torrent,  was  no  easy  matter,  especially 
for  me,  who  went  first.  Eventually,  however,  Kicholson 
and  I  both  entered  the  window,  hospitably  opened  to  re- 
ceive us,  in  safety. 

But  it  was  one  or  two  days  before  the  flood  subsided 
sufiiciently  for  us  to  be  provisioned  in  any  other  manner 
than  by  the  boat ;  and  for  long  years  afterwards  social 
events  were  dated  in  Florence  as  having  happened  "be- 
fore or  after  the  flood."  In  those  days,  and  for  many 
da3-s  subsequently  to  them,  Florence  did  indeed — as  I  have 
observed  when  speaking  of  the  motives  which  induced  us 
to  settle  there — join  to  its  other  attractions  that  of  being 
an  economical  place  of  residence.  Our  money  consisted 
of  piastres,  pauls,  and  crazie.  Eight  of  the  latter  were 
equal  to  a  )>aul,  ten  of  which  were  equivalent  to  a  piastre. 
The  value  of  the  paul  was,  as  nearly  as  possible,  equal  to 
fivepence-halfpenny  English.  The  lira — the  original  rep- 
resentative of  the  leading  denomination  of  our  own  I.  s.  d. 
— no  longer  existe<l  in — the  flesh  I  was  going  to  say,  but 
rather  in — the  nu-tal.  And  it  is  rather  curious  that,  just 
as  the  guinea  remained,  and  indeed  remains,  a  constantly 
used  term  of  speech  after  it  has  ceased  to  exist  as  current 
coin,  so  the  scudo  remained,  in  Tuscany,  no  longer  visi- 
ble or  current,  but  retained  as  an  integer  in  accounts  of 
the  largiT  sort.  If  you  bought  or  sold  house  or  land,  for 
instance,  you  talked  of  scudi.  In  more  every-day  matters 
piastre  or  "  franccsconi "  wire  the  integers  used,  the  latter 
being  only  a  synonym  for  the  former.  And  tin-  propor- 
tion in  value  of  the  scudo  ami  the  piastre  was  i  x.icilv  the 
same  as  that  of  the  guinea  an<l  the  sovereign,  the  former 
being  worth  ten  and  a  half  pauls,  and  the  latter  ten.  The 
handsomest   and  best   preserved   coin    ordinarily  cujrcnt 


344  WHAT    I    REMEMBER. 

■\vas  the  florin,  worth  two  pauls  and  a  half.  Gold  wc 
rarely  saw,  but  golden  sequins  {zecchini)  were  in  exist- 
ence, and  were  traditionally  used,  as  it  was  said,  for  I  have 
no  experience  in  the  matter,  in  the  payment  by  the  gov- 
ernment of  prizes  won  in  the  lottery. 

Now,  after  this  statement  the  reader  will  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  appreciate  the  further  information  that  a  flask  of 
excellent  Chianti,  of  a  quality  rarely  met  with  nowadays, 
was  ordinarily  sold  for  one  paul.  The  flask  contained 
(legal  measure)  seven  tro}^  pounds  weight  of  liquid,  or 
about  three  bottles.  The  same  sum  purchased  a  good 
fowl  in  the  market.  The  subscription  {abbuonamento)  to 
the  Pergola,  the  principal  theatre,  came  to  exactly  two 
crazie  and  a  half  for  each  night  of  performance.  This  price 
admitted  you  only  to  the  pit,  but  as  you  were  j^erfectly  free 
to  enter  any  box  in  which  there  were  persons  of  your  ac- 
quaintance, the  admission  in  the  case  of  a  bachelor,  perma- 
nently or  temporarily  such,  was  all  that  was  necessary  to 
him.    And  the  price  of  the  boxes  was  small  in  proportion. 

These  boxes  were  indeed  the  drawing-rooms  in  which 
very  much  of  the  social  intercourse  of  the  beau  monde 
was  carried  on.  The  performances  were  not  very  fre- 
quently changed  (two  operas  frequently  running  through 
an  entire  season),  and  people  Avent  four  or  five  times  a 
week  to  hear,  or  rather  to  be  present  at,  the  same  repre- 
sentation. And  except  on  first  nights  or  some  other  such 
occasion,  or  during  the  singing  of  the  well-known  tid-bits 
of  any  opera,  there  was  an  amount  of  chattering  in  the 
house  which  would  have  made  the  hair  of  ix.  fanatic o  2'>^ii' 
la  naisica  stand  on  end.  There  was  also  an  exceedingly 
comfortable  but  very  parsimoniously  lighted  large  room, 
■which  was  a  grand  flirting-place,  where  people  sat  very 
jiatiently  during  the  somewhat  long  operation  of  having 
their  names  calk'd  aloud,  as  their  carriages  arrived,  by 
an  oflicial,  who  knew  the  names  and  addresses  of  us  all. 
We  also  knew  his  mode  of  adapting  the  names  of  foreign- 
ers to  his  Italian  organs.  "Ilasa"  (Florentine  for  casa) 
"  Trolo-pe,"  with  a  long-draAvn-out  accent  on  the  last 
vowel,  was  the  absolutely  fatal  signal  for  the  sudden 
breaking-up  of  many  a  pleasant  chat. 


IN  FLORENCE.  345 

Florence  was  also,  in  tliose  days,  an  especially  economi- 
cal place  for  those  to  Avbom  it  Mas  pleasant  to  enjoj^,  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  the  gay  season,  as  many  balls,  concerts, 
and  other  entertainments  as  they  could  possibly  desire, 
■without  the  necessity,  or  indeed  the  possibility,  of  putting 
themselves  to  the  expense  of  giving  anything  in  return. 
There  was  a  weekly  ball  at  the  Pitti  Palace,  and  another 
at  the  Casino  dei  Xobili,  which  latter  was  supported  en- 
tirely by  the  Florentine  aristocracy.  There  were  two  or 
three  balls  at  the  houses  of  the  foreign  ministers,  and  gen- 
erally one  or  two  given  by  two  or  three  wealthy  Floren- 
tine nobles — there  were  a  few,  but  ver}'  few  such. 

Perhaps  the  plcasantest  of  all  these  were  the  balls  at 
the  Pitti.  They  were  so  entirely  sa?is  f/tne.  No  court 
dress  was  required  save  on  the  first  day  of  the  year,  when 
it  was  de  rigueur.  But  absence  on  that  occasion  in  no  way 
excluded  the  absentee  from  the  other  balls.  Indeed,  save 
to  a  new-comer,  no  invitations  to  foreigners  were  issued, 
it  being  understood  that  all  who  had  been  there  once 
were  welcome  ever  after.  The  Pitti  balls  were  not  by 
any  means  concluded,  but  rather  divided  into  two,  by  a 
very  handsome  and  abundant  supper,  at  which,  to  tell 
tales  out  of  school  (but  then  the  offenders  have  no  doubt 
mostly  gone  over  to  the  majority),  the  guests  used  to  be- 
have abominably.  The  English  would  seize  the  plates 
of  bonbons  and  empty  the  contents  bodily  into  their  coat 
pockets.  The  ladies  would  do  the  same  with  their  ])Ocket- 
handkerchiefs.  But  the  duke's  liege  subjects  carried  on 
their  depredations  on  a  far  bolder  scale.  I  have  seen  large 
jiortions  of  fish,  sauce  and  all,  ])acked  up  in  a  newspaper, 
an<l  de])osited  in  a  ])ock('t.  I  have  seen  fowls  and  ham 
share  the  .same  fate  without  any  newspaper  at  all.  I  have 
seen  jelly  carefully  wrapped  in  an  Italian  countess's  laced 
mouchoir!  I  think  the  servants  must  have  had  orders  not 
to  allow  entire  bottles  of  wine  to  be  carried  away,  for  I 
never  saw  that  atteinpte*!,  and  can  imagine  no  other  rea- 
son why.  I  remember  that  those  who  alTected  to  be 
knowing  old  hands  used  to  recommend  one  to  specially 
pay  attention  to  the  GraTid  Ducal  Rhine  wine,  and  re- 
member, loo,  conceiving  a  sus[»icion  that  certain  of  these 


y46  WHAT   1    REMEMBEH. 

connoisseurs  based  their  judgment  in  this  matter  wholly 
on  their  knowledge  that  the  duke  possessed  estates  in 
Uolicmia  ! 

The  Ent'-lish  were  exceedingly  numerous  in  Florence  at 
that  time,  and  they  were  reinforced  by  a  contmually  in- 
creasing American  contingent,  though  our  cousins  had 
not  yet  begun  to  come  in  numbers  rivalling  our  own,  as 
has  been  the  case  recently.  By-the-bye,  it  occurs  to  me 
that  I  never  saw  an  American  pillaging  the  supper-table  ; 
though,  I  may  add,  that  American  ladies  would  accept 
any  amount  of  bonbons  from  English  blockade-runners. 

And  the  mention  of  American  ladies  at  the  Pitti  re- 
minds me  of  a  really  very  funny  story,  which  may  be  told 
without  offence  to  any  one  now  living.  I  have  a  notion 
that  I  have  seen  this  story  of  mine  told  somewhere,  with 
a  change  of  names  and  circumstances  that  spoil  it,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  people  "who  steal  other  folks'  stories 
and  disfigure  them,  as  gypsies  do  stolen  children  to  es- 
cape detection." 

I  had  one  evening  at  the  Pitti,  some  years,  however, 
after  my  first  appearance  there,  a  very  pretty  and  naively 
charming  American  lady  on  my  arm,  whom  I  was  endeav- 
oring to  amuse  by  pointing  out  to  her  all  the  personages 
whom  I  thought  might  interest  her,  as  we  walked  through 
the  rooms.  Dear  old  Dymock,  the  champion,  was  in  Flor- 
ence that  winter,  and  was  at  the  Pitti  that  night.  I  dare 
say  that  there  may  be  many  now  who  do  not  know  with- 
out being  told,  that  Dymock,  the  last  champion,  as  I  am 
almost  afraid  I  must  call  him— though  doubtless  Scrivelsby 
must  still  be  held  by  the  ancient  tenure — was  a  very  small 
old  man,  a  clergyman,  and  not  at  all  the  sort  of  individ- 
ual to  answer  to  the  popular  idea  of  a  cliamiiion.  lie  was 
sitting  in  a  nook  all  by  himself,  and  not  looking  very  he- 
roic or  very  happy  as  we  passed,  and,  nudging  my  com- 
panion's arm,  I  whispered,  "That  is  the  champion."  The 
interest  I  excited  was  greater  than  I  had  calculated  on, 
for  the  lady  marie  a  dead  stop,  and  facing  round  to  gaze 
at  the  old  gentleman,  said,  "  Why,  you  don't  tell  me  so  ! 
I  should  never  have  thought  that  that  could  be  the  fellow 
who  licked  Ileenan  !    But  he  looks  a  plnclcy  little  chap  '" 


r>r 


IN    FLORE.N'CE.  347 

Perhaps  the  i-eader  may  have  forgotten,  or  even  never 
known,  that  the  championship  of  the  pugilistic  world  had 
then  recently  been  won  by  Sayers — I  think  that  was  the 
name — in  a  fitjht  with  an  antaoronist  of  the  name  of  Heenan. 
In  fact  it  was  I,  and  not  my  fair  companion,  who  was  a 
muff,  for  having  imaijined  that  a  vounij  American  woman, 
nearly  fresh  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  was  likely 
to  know  or  ever  have  heard  anything  about  the  champion 
of  England. 

There  happened  to  be  several  Lincolnshire  men  that 
year  in  Florence,  and  there  was  a  dinner  at  which  I,  as 
one  of  the  "  web-footed,"  by  descent  if  not  birth,  was 
present,  and  I  told  them  the  story  of  my  Pitti  catastrophe. 
The  lady's  concluding  words  produced  an  effect  which 
may  be  imagined  more  easily  than  described. 

The  grand  duke  at  these  Pitti  balls  used  to  show  him- 
self and  take  part  in  them  as  little  as  might  be.  The 
grand  duchess  used  to  walk  through  the  rooms  some- 
times. The  grand  duchess,  a  Neapolitan  princess,  was 
not  beloved  by  the  Tuscans  ;  and  I  am  disposed  to  believe 
that  she  did  not  deserve  their  affection.  But  there  was 
at  that  time  another  lady  at  the  Pitti,  the  dowager  grand 
duchess,  the  widow  of  the  late  grand  duke.  She  had 
been  a  Saxon  princess,  and  was  very  favorably  contrasted 
with  the  reigning  duchess  in  graciousness  of  manner,  in 
apiiearaiice — f()r  though  a  considerably  older,  she  was  still 
an  elegant-looking  woman — and,  according  to  the  popular 
estimate,  in  characti-r.  Siie  also  would  occasionally  walk 
through  the  rooms  ;  but  her  object,  and  indeed  that  of 
the  duke,  eeemed  to  be  to  attract  as  little  attention  as 
possible. 

Only  on  the  lirst  night  of  the  year,  w  lu'U  we  were  all  in 
yron  (ji'lfi,  i.  e.,  in  court-suits  or  unifoitn,  did  any  ])ersonal 
communication  with  the  grand  duke  take  place.  His  man- 
ner, when  anybody  was  presented  to  him  on  liicsc  or  oili- 
er occasions,  was  about  as  bad  and  unprincely  as  can  well 
be  conceived.  His  clothes  never  lilte<l  him.  He  used  to 
sujtport  himself  on  one  foot,  hanging  his  head  towards 
that  side,  and  oci-asionally  changing  the  posture  of  both 
foot   and   head,   alwavs  simultaneouslv.      And   lu-   always 


348  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

appeared  to  be  fitrnggling  painfully  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  be  had  nothing  to  say.  It  was  on  one  of  these 
occasions  that  an  American  new  arrival  was  presented  to 
hira  by  Mr,  Maquaj^  the  banker,  who  always  did  that  office 
for  Americans,  the  United  States  having  then  no  repre- 
sentative at  the  grand  ducal  court.  Maquay,  thinking  to 
help  the  duke,  whispered  in  his  ear  that  the  gentleman 
was  connected  by  descent  with  the  great  Washington  ; 
upon  Avhich  the  duke,  changing  his  foot,  said,  '■^  Ah!  le 
grand  YasliV  His  manner  was  that  of  a  lethargic  and 
not  wide-awake  man.  When  strangers  would  sometimes 
venture  some  Avord  of  compliment  on  the  prosperity  and 
contentment  of  the  Tuscans  his  reply  invariably  was, 
'^  /So7io  tranqicilW'' — they  are  quiet.  But,  in  truth,  much 
more  might  have  been  said  ;  for,  assuredly,  Tuscany  was 
a  Land  of  Goshen  in  the  midst  of  the  peninsula.  There 
was  neither  want  nor  discontent  (save  among  a  very  small 
knot  of  politicians,  who  might  almost  have  been  counted 
on  the  hand)  nor  crime.  There  was  at  Florence  next  to 
no  police  of  any  kind,  but  the  streets  were  perfectly  safe 
by  night  or  by  day. 

There  was  a  story,  much  about  that  time,  which  made 
some  noise  in  Europe,  and  was  very  disingenuously  made 
use  of,  as  such  stories  are,  of  a  certain  Florentine  and  his 
wife,  named  Madiai,  who  had  been,  it  was  asserted,  perse- 
cuted for  reading  the  Bible.  It  was  not  so.  They  were 
*'  persecuted  "  for,  i.  e.,  restrained  from,  preaching  to  oth- 
ers that  they  ought  to  read  it,  which  is,  though  doubtless 
a  bad,  yet  a  very  different  thing. 

I  believe  the  grand  duke  {gran  ciuco — great  ass — as 
his  irreverent  Tuscans  nicknamed  him)  was  a  good  and 
kindly  man,  and,  under  the  circumstances  and  to  the  ex- 
tent of  his  abilities,  not  a  bad  ruler.  Tlie  })hrase  which 
Giusti  applied  to  him,  and  which  the  inimitable  talent  of 
the  satirist  has  made  more  durable  than  any  other  memo- 
rial of  the  poor  gran  ciuco  is  likely  to  be,  "  asciuga  tasche 
e  tnaremme^^ — he  dries  up  pockets  and  marshes — is  as  un- 
just as  such  mots  of  satirists  are  wont  to  be.  The  drain- 
ing of  the  great  marshes  of  the  Chiana,  between  Arezzo 
and  Chiusi,  was   a  well-considered   and  most  beneficent 


IN  FLORENCE.  349 

work  on  a  marjnificent  scale,  which,  so  far  from  "drying 
pockets,"  added  enormously  to  the  wealth  of  the  country, 
and  is  now  adding  very  appreciably  to  the  prosperity  of 
Italy.  Nor  was  Giusti's  reproach  in  any  way  merited  by 
the  grand  ducal  government.  The  grand  duke,  person- 
ally, was  a  very  wealthy  man,  as  well  as,  in  respect  to  his 
own  habits,  a  most  simple  liver.  The  necessary  expenses 
of  the  little  state  were  small,  and  taxation  was  so  light 
that  a  comparison  between  that  of  the  Saturnian  daj's  in 
question  and  that  under  which  the  Tuscans  of  the  present 
day  not  unreasonably  groan  might  afford  a  text  for  some 
very  far-reaching  speculations.  The  Tuscans  of  the  pres- 
ent day  may  preach  any  theological  doctrines  they  please 
to  any  who  will  listen  to  them,  or,  indeed,  to  those  who 
won't,  but  it  would  be  curious  to  know  how  many  individ- 
uals among  them  consider  that,  or  any  other  recently  ac- 
quired liberty,  well  bought  at  the  price  they  pay  for  it. 

The  grand  duke  was  certainly  not  a  great  or  wise  man. 
He  was  one  of  those  men  of  whom  their  friends  habitually 
say  that  they  are  "  no  fools,"  or  "  not  such  fools  as  they 
look,"  which  generallv  mav  be  understood  to  mean  that 
the  individual  spoken  of  cannot,  with  physiological  accu- 
racy, be  considered  a  cretin.  Nevertheless,  in  his  case  the 
expression  was  doubtless  accurately  true.  He  was  not 
such  a  fool  as  he  looked,  for  his  ai)pearance  was  certainly 
not  that  of  a  wise,  or  even  an  intelligent  man. 

One  story  is  told  of  him  which  1  have  reason  to  believe 
perfectly  true,  and  which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  man 
and  of  the  time  that  I  must  not  deprive  the  reader  of  it. 

It  was  the  custom  that  on  St.  John's  Day  the  duke 
should  visit  and  inspect  the  small  body  of  troops  who 
were  lodge<l  in  the  F<>rte//.:i  di  San  (iiovanni,  or  Fortezza 
da  Basso,  as  it  was  j»oi)ularly  called,  in  contradislinction 
from  another  fort  on  the  high  ground  above  tlic  I'xiboli 
(iardens.  And  it  was  expected  that,  on  these  occasions, 
the  sovereign  should  address  a  few  words  to  his  soldiers. 
So  the  duke,  resting  ids  person  lir>t  on  one  leg  and  then 
on  the  other,  after  his  fashion,  stooil  in  Ironl  of  (he  two 
(»r  three  score  of  men  drawn  up  in  line  before  him,  .uul, 
after  telling  them  that  ol»rdi(iiec  to  their  ollieers  and  at- 


350  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

tachment  to  duty  were  the  especial  virtues  of  a  soldier,  he 
continued,  "  Above  all,  my  men,  I  desire  that  you  should 
remember  the  duties  and  observances  of  our  holy  religion, 
and — and — "  (here,  having  said  all  he  had  to  say,  his  high- 
ness was  at  a  loss  for  a  conclusion  to  his  harangue.  But, 
looking  down  on  the  ground  as  he  strove  to  find  a  fitting 
peroration,  he  observed  that  the  army's  shoes  were  sadly 
in  want  of  the  blacking-brush,  so  he  concluded,  with  more 
of  animation  and  significance  than  he  had  before  evinced) 
"and  keep  your  shoes  clean  !" 

I  may  find  room  further  on  to  say  a  few  words  of  what 
I  reraeml)er  of  the  revolution  which  dethroned  poor  gran 
ciuco.  But  I  may  as  well  conclude  here  wbat  I  have  to 
say  of  him  by  relating  the  manner  of  his  final  exit  from 
the  soil  of  Tuscany,  of  which  the  malicious  among  the 
few  who  knew  the  circumstances  were  wont  to  say — very 
unjustly — that  nothing  in  his  reign  became  him  like  the 
leaving  of  it.  I  saw  him  pass  out  from  the  Porta  San 
Gallo  on  his  way  to  Bologna  among  a  crowd  of  his  late 
subjects,  who  all  lifted  their  hats,  though  not  without 
some  satirical  cries  of  "  Addio,  saiP''  '■'■  Buon  viaggioV 
But  a  few — a  very  few — friends  accompanied  his  carriage 
to  the  papal  frontier,  an  invisible  line  on  the  bleak  Apen- 
nines, unmarked  by  any  habitation.  There  he  descended 
from  his  carriage  to  receive  their  last  adieus,  and  there 
was  much  lowly  bowing  as  they  stood  on  the  highway. 
The  duke,  not  unmoved,  bowed  lowly  in  return,  but,  un- 
fortunately, backing  as  he  did  so,  tri])ped  himself  up  with 
characteristic  awkwardness,  and  tumbled  backwards  on  a 
heap  of  broken  stones  prepared  for  the  road,  with  his 
heels  in  the  air,  and  exhibiting  to  his  unfaithful  Tuscans 
and  ungrateful  duchy,  as  a  last  remembrance  of  him,  a 
full  view  of  a  part  6f  his  person  rarely  put  forward  on 
such  occasions. 

And  so  exeunt  from  the  sight  of  men  and  from  history  ^ 
grand  duke  and  a  grand  duchy. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

CHARLES     DICKENS. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  flood  in  Florence — it  seems  to 
me,  as  I  write,  that  I  might  almost  leave  out  the  two  last 
words  ! — that  I  saw  Dickens  for  the  first  time.  One  morn- 
ins:  in  Casa  Berti  mv  mother  was  most  agreeablv  surprised 
bv  a  card  brousjbt  in  to  her  with  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles 
Dickens  "  on  it.  We  had  been  among  his  lieartiest  admir- 
ers from  the  early  days  of  "  Pickwick."  I  don't  think  we 
had  happened  to  see  the  "Sketclies  by  Boz."  But  my 
uncle  ^liltoii  used  to  come  to  Iladlcv  full  of  "the  last 
'  Pickwick,' "  and  swearing  that  each  number  out-Pick- 
wicked  Pickwick.  And  it  was  with  the  greatest  curiosity 
and  interest  that  we  saw  the  creator  of  all  this  enjoyment 
enter  in  the  flesh. 

We  were  at  first  disappointed,  and  disposed  to  imagine 
there  must  be  some  mistake.  No  !  (hat  is  not  the  man 
who  wrote  "  Pickwick  "  I  What  we  saw  was  a  dandified, 
prettv-bov-lookintr  sort  of  figure:  sincrularlv  vouncr-look- 
ing,  I  thought,  with  a  slight  fiavor  of  the  whipper-snapper 
tjenus  of  humaiiitv. 

Here  is  Carlyle's  description  of  his  appearance  at  about 
that  period  of  his  life,  quoted  from  I'loude's  "History  of 
Carlyle's  Life  in  London": 

^^]\o  is  a  fine  little  fellow — Boz — I  think.  Clear-blue, 
intelligent  eyes,  eyebrows  that  he  arches  amazingly,  large, 
protrusive,  rather  loose  mouth,  a  face  of  most  extreme 
mobility,  which  he  shuttles  about — eyebrows,  eyes,  mouth, 
and  all — in  a  very  singidar  ntanner  when  speaking.  Sur- 
mount this  with  a  Ior)S('  cr)il  of  common-colored  hair,  an«l 
set  on  it  a  small,  compact  figure,  very  small,  and  dressed 
d  la  D'Orsay  rather  than  well — this  is  Pickwick.  For 
the  rest,  a  <piiet,  Khrewd-Iookiiig  little  fellow,  who  seems 
to  guess  j)retty  well  what  he  is  and  wh:it  others  are." 


352  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

One  may  perhaps  venture  to  suppose  that,  had  the  sec- 
ond of  these  guessei  been  less  accurate,  tlie  description 
might  have  been  a  less  kindly  one. 

But  there  are  two  errors  to  be  noted  in  this  sketch, 
graphic  as  it  is.  Firstly,  Dickens'  eyes  were  not  blue, 
but  of  a  very  distinct  and  brilliant  hazel — the  color  tradi- 
tionally assigned  to  Shakespeare's  eyes.  Secondly,  Dick- 
ens, although  truly  of  a  slight,  compact  figure,  was  not  a 
very  small  man.  I  do  not  think  he  was  below  the  average 
middle  height.  I  speak  from  my  remembrance  of  him  at 
a  later  day,  when  1  had  become  intimate  with  him  ;  but, 
curiously  enough,  I  hud,  on  looking  back  into  my  mem- 
ory, that,  if  I  had  been  asked  to  describe  him  as  I  first 
saw  him,  I,  too,  should  have  said  that  he  was  very  small. 
Carlyle's  words  refer  to  Dickens'  youth  soon  after  he  had 
published  "Pickwick";  and  no  doubt  at  this  period  he 
had  a  look  of  delicacy,  almost  of  effeminacy,  if  one  may 
accept  Maclise's  well-known  portrait  as  a  truthful  record, 
which  might  give  those  who  saw  him  the  impression  of  his 
being  smaller  and  more  fragile  in  build  than  Avas  the  fact. 
In  later  life  he  lost  this  D'Orsay  look  completely,  and  was 
bronzed  and  reddened  bv  wind  and  Aveather  like  a  seaman. 

In  fact,  when  I  saw  him  subsequently  in  London,  I  think 
I  should  have  passed  him  in  the  street  without  recognizing 
him.     I  never  saw  a  man  so  changed. 

Any  attempt  to  draw  a  complete  pen-and-ink  portrait  of 
Dickens  has  been  rendered  forevermore  superfluous,  if  it 
were  not  presumptuous,  by  the  masterly  and  exhaustive 
life  of  him  by  Jolm  Forster.  But  one  may  be  allowed  to 
record  one's  own  impressions,  and  any  small  incident  or 
anecdote  which  memory  holds,  on  the  grounds  set  forth 
by  the  great  writer  himself,  who  says  in  the  introduction 
to  the  "  American  Notes  "  (first  printed  in  the  biograph}') : 
"Very  many  works  having  just  the  same  scope  and  range 
have  been  already  published.  But  I  think  that  these  two 
volumes  stand  in  need  of  no  apology  on  that  account. 
The  interest  of  such  productions,  if  they  have  anv,  lies  in 
the  varying  impressions  made  by  the  same  novel  things 
on  different  minds,  and  not  in  new  discoveries  or  extraor- 
dinarv  adventures." 


CHARLES   DICKENS.  353 

At  Florence  Diclcens  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Landor's 
villa,  the  owner  being  then  absent  in  England,  and  gath- 
ered a  leaf  of  ivy  from  Fiesole  to  carry  back  to  the  veter- 
an poet,  as  narrated  by  Mr.  Forster.  Dickens  is  as  accu- 
rate as  a  topographer  in  his  description  of  the  villa  as 
looked  down  on  from  Fiesole.  How  often — ah,  Jiow  often  ! 
— have  I  looked  down  from  that  same  dwarf  wall  over  the 
matchless  view  where  Florence  shows  the  wealth  of  villas 
that  Ariosto  declares  made  it  equivalent  to  two  Romes  ! 

Dickens  was  only  thirty-three  when  I  first  saw  him, 
being  just  two  years  my  junior.  I  have  said  what  he  ap- 
peared to  me  then.  As  I  knew  him  afterwards,  and  to 
the  end  of  his  days,  he  was  a  strikingly  manly  man,  not 
only  in  appearance,  but  in  bearing.  The  lustrous  brilliancy 
of  his  eyes  was  very  striking.  And  I  do  not  think  that  I 
have  ever  seen  it  noticed  that  those  wonderful  eyes  which 
saw  so  much  and  so  keenly  were  appreciably,  though  to 
a  very  slight  degree,  near-sighted  eyes.  Very  few  per- 
sons, even  among  those  who  knew  him  well,  were  aware 
of  this,  for  Dickens  never  used  a  glass.  But  he  continu- 
ally exercised  his  vision  by  looking  at  distant  objects,  and 
making  them  out  as  well  as  he  could  without  any  artificial 
assistance.  It  was  an  instance  of  that  force  of  will  in  him 
which  compelled  a  naturally  somewhat  delicate  frame  to 
comport  itself  like  that  of  an  athlete.  ]\Ir.  Forster  some- 
where says  of  him,  "  Dickens'  habits  were  robust,  but  his 
health  was  not."  This  is  entirely  true  as  far  as  my  obser- 
vation extends. 

Of  the  general  charm  of  his  nianncr  T  des])air  of  giving 
any  idea  to  those  who  have  not  seen  or  known  him.  This 
was  a  charm  by  no  means  de])cndt'nt  on  his  genius.  lie 
might  have  bet-n  the  great  writer  he  was  and  yet  not  have 
warmed  the  social  atmosphere  wherever  lie  appeared  with 
that  summer  glow  which  seemed  ii»  :itt( ml  liiiii.  His  laugh 
was  brimful  of  enjoyment.  There  was  a  peculiar  hum<tr- 
ous  protest  in  it  when  recounting  or  hearing  anvthing 
speciailv  absurd,  as  who  should  sav  '*'l'<tn  mv  soul  this  is 
too  ridiculous  I  This  passes  all  l)ounds  !"  and  bursting 
out  afresh  as  though  the  sense  ol'  tin'  ridiculous  over- 
whelmed him  like  a  tide,  which  carried  all  hearers  away 


354  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

with  it,  and  which  I  Avell  remember.  ITis  enthusiasm  was 
boundless.  It  entered  into  everytliing  he  said  or  did.  It 
belonged  doubtless  to  that  amazing  fertility  and  wealth 
of  ideas  and  feeling  tliat  distinguished  his  genius. 

No  one  having  any  knowledge  of  the  profession  of  lit- 
erature can  read  Dickens'  private  letters  and  not  stand 
amazed  at  the  unbounded  affluence  of  imager)^,  sentiment, 
humor,  and  keen  observation  which  he  poured  out  in 
them.  There  Avas  no  stint,  no  reservation  for  trade  pur- 
poses. So  with  his  conversation — every  thought,  every 
fancy,  every  feeling  was  expressed  with  the  utmost  vivac- 
ity and  intensit}^,  but  a  vivacity  and  intensity  compatible 
with  the  most  singular  delicacy  and  nicety  of  touch  when 
delicacy  and  nicety  of  touch  were  needed. 

What  were  called  the  exaggerations  of  his  writing  were 
due,  I  have  no  doubt,  to  the  extraordinary  luminosity  of 
his  imacrination.  lie  saw  and  rendered  such  an  individu- 
ality  as  Mr.  Pecksniff's  or  Mrs.  Nickleby's,  for  instance, 
something  after  the  same  fashion  as  a  solar  microscope 
renders  any  object  observed  through  it.  The  world  in 
general  beholds  its  Pecksniffs  and  its  Mrs.  Nicklebys 
through  a  different  medium.  And  at  any  rate  Dickens 
got  at  the  quintessence  of  his  creatures,  and  enables  us  all, 
in  our  various  measures,  to  perceive  it  too.  The  proof  of 
this  is  that  we  are  constantly  not  only  quoting  the  sayings 
and  doings  of  his  immortal  characters,  but  are  recognizing 
other  sayings  and  doings  as  what  they  would  have  said  or 
done. 

But  it  is  impossible  for  one  who  knew  him  as  I  did  to 
confine  what  he  remembers  of  him  either  to  traits  of  out- 
ward appeai-ance  or  to  appreciations  of  his  genius.  I  must 
say  a  few,  a  very  few  Avords  of  what  Dickens  appeared  to 
me  as  a  man.  I  think  that  an  ('])ithet,  which,  much  and 
senselessly  as  it  has  been  misapi)lied  and  degraded,  is  yet, 
when  rightly  used,  perhaps  the  grandest  that  can  be  ap- 
plied to  a  human  being,  was  especially  applicable  to  him. 
He  was  a  hearty  man,  a  large-hearted  man  that  is  to  say. 
He  was  perhaps  the  largest-hearted  man  I  ever  knew.  I 
think  he  made  a  nearer  approach  to  obeying  the  divine 
precept,  "  Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  than  one  man  in 


CHARLES   DICKENS.  355 


a  hundred  thousand.  His  benevolence,  his  active,  ener- 
gizing desire  for  good  to  all  God's  creatures,  and  restless 
anxiety  to  be  in  some  way  active  for  the  achieving  of  it, 
were  unceasing  and  busy  in  his  heart  ever  and  always. 

But  he  had  a  sufficient  capacity  for  a  virtue  which,  I 
think,  seems  to  be  moribund  among  us  —  the  virtue  of 
moral  indignation.  Men  and  their  actions  were  not  all 
much  of  a  muchness  to  him.  There  was  none  of  the  in- 
difFerentism  of  that  pseudo-philosophic  moderation  which, 
when  a  scoundrel  or  scoundrelly  action  is  on  the  tapis, 
hints  that  there  is  much  to  be  said  on  both  sides.  Dick- 
ens hated  a  mean  action  or  a  mean  sentiment  as  one  hates 
something  that  is  physically  loathsome  to  the  sight  and 
touch.  And  he  could  be  angry,  as  those  with  whom  he 
had  been  angry  did  not  very  readily  forget. 

And  there  was  one  other  aspect  of  his  moral  nature,  of 
which  I  am  reminded  by  an  observation  which  Mr.  For- 
eter  records  as  having  been  made  by  Mrs.  Carlyle.  "  Light 
and  motion  flashed  from  every  part  of  it  [his  face].  It 
was  as  if  made  of  steel."  The  first  part  of  the  phrase  is 
true  and  graphic  enough,  but  the  image  offered  by  the 
last  words  appears  to  me  a  singularly  infelicitous  one. 
There  was  nothing  of  tln'  hardness  or  of  the  (moral)  sharp- 
ness of  steel  about  the  expression  of  Dickens'  face  and 
features.  Kindling  mirth  and  genial  fun  were  the  expres- 
sions which  those  who  casually  met  hinx  in  society  were 
habituateil  to  find  there,  but  those  who  knew  him  well 
knew  also  well  that  a  tenderness,  gentle  and  sympathetic 
as  that  of  a  woman,  was  a  mood  that  his  surely  never 
"  fiteelv  "  face  could  express  ex(piisitely,  and  did  express 
frcfiucntly. 

I  used  to  see  him  very  frecpicntly  in  his  latter  years.  I 
generally  came  to  London  in  the  suruMitr,  and  one  of  the 
first  tilings  on  my  list  was  a  visit  to  '20  Wellington  Street. 
Then  w«»uld  follow  sundry  other  visits  and  meetings — to 
Tavistock  House,  to  (iadshill,  at  Vcrey's  in  licgint  Street, 
a  place  he  m\ich  patronized,  etc.,  etc.  I  remember  one 
day  meeting  Chnuni-y  Hare  Townsend  at  Tavistock  Jlouse 
and  thinking  him  a  very  singular  and  not  parlicnlaily 
agreeable  man.    I'Mwin  T/uidseer,  T  r«nii  iiilx  r,  <lined  there 


356  WHAT   1   KEMEMBEK. 

the  same  day.     But  he  had  been  a  friend  of  my  mother's, 
and  was  my  acquaintance  of  lone:,  long  years  before. 

Of  course  we  had  much  and  frequent  talk  about  Italy, 
and  I  may  say  that  our  ideas  and  opinions,  and  especially 
feelings  on  that  subject,  were  always,  I  tliink,  in  unison. 
Our  agreement  respecting  English  social  and  political 
matters  was  less  perfect.  Bnt  I  think  that  it  Avould  have 
become  more  nearly  so  had  his  life  been  prolonged  as 
mine  has  been.  And  the  a^^proximation  would,  if  I  am 
not  much  mistaken,  have  been  brought  about  by  a  move- 
ment of  mind  on  his  part,  which  already  I  think  those  who 
knew  him  best  will  agree  with  me  in  thinking  had  com- 
menced. We  differed  on  many  points  of  politics.  But 
there  is  one  department  of  English  social  life — one  with 
which  I  am  probably  more  intimately  acquainted  than 
with  any  other,  and  which  has  always  been  to  me  one  of 
much  interest — our  public-school  system — respecting  which 
our  agreement  was  complete.  And  I  cannot  refrain  from 
quoting.  The  oi>inion  which  he  expresses  is  as  true  as  if 
he  had,  like  me,  an  eight  years'  experience  of  the  system 
he  is  speaking  of.  And  the  passage  which  I  am  about  to 
give  is  very  remarkable  as  an  instance  of  the  singular 
acumen,  insight,  and  ])Ower  of  sympathy  which  enabled 
him  to  form  so  accurately  correct  an  opinion  on  a  matter 
of  which  he  might  be  supposed  to  know  nothing. 

*'  In  July,"  says  Mr.  Forster,  writing  of  the  year  1858-9, 
"he  took  earnest  part  in  the  opening  efforts  on  behalf  of  the 
Royal  Dramatic  College,  which  he  supplemented  later  by 
a  speech  for  the  establishment  of  schools  for  actors'  chil- 
dren, in  which  he  took  occasion  to  declare  his  belief  that 
there  were  no  institutions  in  England  so  socially  liberal 
as  its  public  schools,  and  that  there  was  nowhere  in  the 
country  so  complete  an  absence  of  servility  to  mere  rank, 
position,  and  riches.  '  A  boy  there '  "  (Mr.  Forster  here 
quotes  Dickens'  own  words)  "  '  is  always  wliat  his  abili- 
ties and  personal  qualities  make  him.  We  may  differ 
about  the  curriculum  and  other  matters,  but  of  the  frank, 
free,  manly,  independent  spiiit  preserved  in  our  public 
schools  I  apprehend  there  can  be  no  kind  of  question.'  " 

I  have  in  my  possession  a  great  number  of  letters  from 


CHARLES  DICKEXS.  357 

Dickens,  some  of  wliich  might  probably  have  been  pub- 
lished in  the  valuable  collection  of  his  letters  published 
by  his  sister-in-law  and  eldest  daughter  had  they  been 
get-at-able  at  the  time  when  they  might  have  been  avail- 
able for  that  publication.*  But  I  was  at  Rome,  and  the 
letters  were  safely  stowed  away  in  England  in  such  sort 
that  it  would  have  needed  a  journey  to  London  to  get  at 
them. 

I  was  for  several  years  a  frequent  contributor  to  House- 
hold Words,  my  contributions  for  the  most  part  consist- 
ing of  what  I  considered  tid-bits  from  the  byways  of  Ital- 
ian history,  which  the  persevering  plough  of  my  reading 
turned  up  from  time  to  time. 

In  one  case  I  remember  the  article  was  sent  "  to  order." 
I  was  dining  with  him  after  I  had  just  had  all  the  remain- 
ing hairs  on  my  head  made  to  stand  on  end  by  the  pe- 
rusal of  tbe  officially  published  "  Manual  for  Confessors," 
as  approved  by  superior  authority  for  the  dioceses  of  Tus- 
cany, I  was  full  of  the  subject,  and  made,  I  fancy,  the 
hairs  of  some  who  sat  at  table  with  me  stand  on  end  also. 
Dickens  said,  with  nailing  forelinger  levelled  at  me,  "  Give 
us  that  for  Household  ^\^ords.  Give  it  us  just  as  you 
have  now  been  tellinix  it  to  us" — which  laccordinglv  did. 
Whether  the  publication  of  that  article  was  in  any  wise 
connected  with  the  fact  that  when  I  wished  to  purchase  a 
second  copy  of  that  most  extraordinary  work  I  Avas  told 
that  it  was  out  of  print,  and  not  to  be  had,  I  do  not  know. 
Of  course  it  was  kept  as  continually  in  print  as  the  "  Latin 
Grammar,"  for  the  constant  use  of  the  class  for  whom  it 
was  provided,  and  who  most  assuredly  could  not  have 
foimd  their  way  safely  through  the  wonderfid  intricacies 
of  the  confessional  without  it.  And  equally,  of  course, 
the  ]>ubli>lurs  of  so  largely  circulated  a  work  did  not 
succeed  in  preventing  me  from  obtaining  a  second  copy 
of  it. 


*  Somo  of  the  lettcra  in  qiiostion — such  ns  I  Imd  with  me — wore  sent  to 
liOnilon  for  fluit  piirpof^e.  I  iId  not  remomhor  now  wliieli  were  and  which 
were  not.  Itiit  if  it  .xlionM  l)e  tlic  rase  tlint  any  of  lliosc  prinliMJ  hero  liave 
been  printed  before,  I  do  not  think  any  reader  w  ill  object  to  having  them 
again  brought  under  hi.t  eye. 


358  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Many  of  the  letters  addressed  to  me  by  Dickens  con- 
cerned more  or  less  my  contributions  to  Lis  periodical, 
and  many  more  are  not  of  a  nature  to  intei'est  the  public 
even  though  they  came  from  him.  But  I  may  give  a  few 
extracts  from  three  or  four  of  them.* 

Here  is  a  passage  from  a  letter  dated  3d  of  December, 
18G1,  -which  ni}^  vanity  will  not  let  me  suppress. 

"  Yes ;  the  Christmas  number  ivas  intended  as  a  conveyance  of  all 
friendly  greetings  in  season  and  out  of  season.  As  to  its  lesson,  you  need 
it  almost  as  little  as  any  man  I  know;  for  all  your  study  and  seclusion 
conduce  to  the  general  good,  and  disseminate  truths  that  men  cannot  too 
earnestly  take  to  heart.  Yes,  a  capital  story  that  of  'The  Two  Seaborn 
Babbies,'  and  wonderfully  droll,  I  think.  I  may  say  so  without  blushing, 
for  it  is  not  by  me.     It  was  done  by  Wilkie  Collins." 

Here  is  another  short  note,  not  a  little  gratifying  to  me 
personally,  but  not  without  interest  of  a  larger  kind  to  the 
reader  : 

"  Tuesdar/,  I5ih  November,  1859. 

"  My  DEAR  Trou.ope, — I  write  this  hasty  word,  just  as  the  post  leaves, 
to  ask  vou  this  question,  which  this  moment  occurs  to  me. 

"  Montalembert,  in  liis  suppressed  treatise,  asks, '  What  wrong  has  Pope 
Pius  the  Ninth  done?'  Don't  you  think  you  can  very  pointedly  answer 
that  question  in  these  pages  ?     If  you  cannot,  nobody  in  Europe  can. 

''Very  faithfully  yours  alwa3-s,  Ciiarli;s  Dickkns." 

Some,  some  few,  may  remember  the  interest  excited  by 
the  treatise  to  which  the  above  letter  refers.  No  doubt  I 
could,  and  doubtless  did,  though  I  forget  all  about  it,  an- 
swer the  question  propounded  by  the  celebrated  French- 
writer.  But  there  was  little  hope  of  my  doing  it  as  "  point- 
edly" as  my  correspondent  would  have  done  it  himself. 
Tlie  answer,  which  niiglit  well  have  consisted  of  a  succinct 
statement  of  all  the  difficulties  of  the  position  with  which 
Italy  was  then  struggling,  had  to  confine  itself  to  the 
limits  of  an  article  in  All  The  Year  Round,  and  needed,  in 
truti',  to  be  pointed.  I  have  observed  that,  in  all  our  many 
conversations  on  Italian  matters,  Dickens'  views  and  opin- 
ions coincided  with  my  own,  without,  I  think,  any  point  of 

*  I  wish  it  to  1)C  observed  that  any  letters,  or  parts  of  letters,  from 
Dickens  here  printed  are  published  with  tiie  pernjisjsion  and  authorization 
of  his  8i8ter-in-law,  Miss  Georgina  Hogarth, 


CHARLES   DICKENS.  359 

divergence.  Very  specially  was  this  the  case  as  regards 
all  that  concerned  the  Vatican  and  the  doings  of  the 
Curia.  How  well  I  romcnihcr  his  arched  eyebrows  and 
laughing  eyes  when  I  told  him  of  Garibaldi's  proposal 
that  all  priests  should  be  summarily  executed  !  I  think 
it  modified  his  ideas  of  the  possible  utility  of  Garibaldi  as 
a  politician. 

Then  comes  an  invitation  to  "mv  Falstaff  house  at 
Gadshill." 

Here  is  a  letter  of  the  17th  February,  ISGG,  which  I  will 
give  in  extenso,  bribed  again  by  the  very  flattering  words 
in  which  the  writer  speaks  of  our  friendship: 

"  My  dear  Troi.lope, — I  am  heartily  glad  to  hear  from  vou.  It  was  such 
a  disagreeable  surprise  to  find  that  you  liad  left  London  [I  had  beeQ 
called  away  at  an  hour's  notice]  on  the  occasion  of  your  last  visit  without 
my  having  seen  you,  that  I  have  never  since  got  it  out  of  my  mind.  I  felt 
as  if  it  were  my  fault  (thoiiirli  I  don't  know  how  that  can  have  been),  and 
as  if  1  had  somehow  been  traitorous  to  the  earnest  and  affectionate  regard 
with  which  you  have  inspired  me. 

"The  lady's  verses  are  accepted  by  the  editorial  potentate,  and  shall 
presently  appear.  [I  am  ashamed  to  say  that  I  totally  forget  who  the 
lady  was.] 

"  I  am  not  quite  well,  and  am  being  touched  up  (or  down)  by  the  doc- 
tors. Whether  the  irritation  of  mind  I  had  to  endure  pending  the  discus- 
sions of  a  preposterous  clerical  body  called  a  Convocation,  and  whether  the 
weakened  hopefulness  of  mankind  which  such  a  dash  of  the  Middle  Ages 
in  the  color  and  pattern  of  186G  engenders,  may  have  anything  to  do  with 
it,  I  don't  know. 

"  What  a  happy  man  you  must  be  in  having  a  new  house  to  work  at. 
When  it  is  quite  complete,  and  the  roc's  egg  hung  up,  I  suppose  you  will 
get  rid  of  it  bodily  and  turn  to  at  another.  [Absil  omen!  At  this  very 
moment,  while  I  transcribe  this  letter,  I  am  turning  to  at  another.] 
,  "  Daily  Xars  correspondent  [as  I  then  for  a  short  time  was],  Novel, 
and  Hospitality!  Enough  to  do,  indeed !  Perhafis  the  day  ntiffhf  be  ad- 
vantageously made  longer  for  such  work  —  or  say  life.  [Ah  !  if  the  small 
matters  rehearsed  had  been  all,  I  could  more  contentedly  have  put  up  with 
till-  allowance  of  four-andtwenty  hours.]  And  yet  I  don't  know.  Like 
enough  we  shoulil  all  do  less  if  wc  liad  time  to  do  niore  in. 

"  Layanl  was  with  us  for  a  couple  of  days  a  little  while  ago,  and  brought 
the  last  report  of  you,  and  of  your  daughter,  who  seems  ti>  have  made  a 
great  impression  on  him.  I  wish  he  had  had  the  keepershiji  of  the  Na- 
tional Gallery,  for  I  don't  think  his  govcrnmrnt  will  hold  together  through 
many  weeks. 

"  I  wonder  whether  you  thought  as  highly  of  Giljson's  art  as  the  laily  did 
who  wrote  the  versc«.     I  must  say  thnt  I  did  not,  and  that  I  thought  it  of 


360  WHAT    I   REMEMBER. 

a  mechanical  sort,  with  no  great  amount  of  imagination  in  it.  It  seemed 
to  me  as  if  he  'didn't  find  me'  in  that,  as  the  servants  say,  but  only  pro- 
vided me  with  carved  marble,  and  expected  me  to  furnish  myself  with  as 
much  idea  as  I  could  afford. 

"  Very  faithfully  yours,  Charles  Dickens." 

I  do  not  remember  the  verses,  though  I  feel  confident 
that  the  hidy  who  sent  them  through  me  must  have  been 
a  very  charming  person.  As  to  Gibson,  no  criticism  could 
be  sounder.  I  had  a  considerable  liking  for  Gibson  as  a 
man,  and  admiration  for  his  character,  but  as  regards  his 
ideal  productions  I  thhik  Dickens  hits  the  right  nail  on 
the  head. 

In  another  letter  of  the  same  year,  25th  July,  after  a 
page  of  remarks  on  editorial  matters,  he  writes  : 

"  If  Italy  could  but  achieve  some  brilliant  success  in  arms  !  That  she 
does  not,  causes,  I  think,  some  disappointment  here,  and  makes  her  slug- 
gish friends  more  sluggish,  and  her  open  enemies  more  powerful.  I  fear, 
too,  that  the  Italian  ministry  have  lost  an  excellent  opportunity  of  repair- 
ing the  national  credit  in  London  city,  and  have  borrowed  money  in  France 
for  the  poor  consideration  of  lower  interest,  which  [sic,  but  I  suspect 
u-hich  must  be  a  slip  of  the  pen  for  thaii^  they  could  have  got  in  England, 
greatly  to  the  re-establishment  of  a  reputation  for  public  good  faith.  As  to 
Louis  Napoleon,  his  position  in  the  whole  matter  is  to  me  like  his  position 
in  Europe  at  all  times,  simply  disheartening  and  astouiiduig.  Between 
Prussia  and  Austria  there  is,  in  my  mind  (but  for  Italy),  not  a  pin  to 
choose.  If  each  could  smash  the  otlier  I  should  be,  as  to  those  two  powers, 
perfectly  satisfied.  But  I  feel  for  Italy  almost  as  if  I  were  an  Italian  born. 
So  here  you  have  in  brief  my  confession  of  faith. 

"Mr.  Home  [as  he  by  that  time  called  himself  —  when  he  was  staying 
in  my  house  his  name  was  Ilume],  after  trying  to  come  out  as  an  actor, 
first  at  Fechter's  (where  I  had  the  honor  of  stopping  him  short),  and  then 
at  the  St.  James's  Theatre  under  Miss  Herbert  (where  he  was  twice  an- 
nounced, and  each  time  very  mysteriously  disappeared  from  the  bills),  was 
announced  at  the  little  theatre  in  Dean  Street,  Soho,  as  a  '  great  attraction 
for  one  night  only,'  to  play  last  Monday.  An  appropriately  diity  little  rag 
of  a  bill,  fluttering  in  the  window  of  an  obscure  dairy  behind  the  Strand, 
gave  me  this  intelligence  last  Saturday.  It  is  like  enough  that  even  that 
striking  business  did  not  come  off,  for  I  believe  the  public  to  have  found 
out  the  scoundrel ;  in  which  lively  and  sustaining  hope  this  leaves  me  at 
present.  Ever  faithfully  yours,  Chaules  Dickens." 

Here  is  a  letter  wliich,  as  may  be  easily  imagined,  I 
value  much.  It  was  written  on  the  2d  of  November,  1866, 
and  reached  me  at  Brest.      It  was  written  to  congratu- 


CHARLES  DICKENS.  361 

late  me  on  ray  second  marriage,  and  among  the  great  num- 
ber which  I  received  on  that  occasion  is  one  of  the  most 
warm-hearted  : 

"  Mr  DEAR  Trollope, — I  should  have  written  immediately  to  congratu- 
late you  on  your  then  approaching  marriage,  and  to  assure  you  of  my  most 
cordial  and  affectionate  interest  in  all  that  nearly  concerns  you,  had  I 
known  how  best  to  address  you. 

"No  friend  that  you  have  can  be  more  truly  attached  to  you  than  I  am. 
I  congratulate  you  with  all  my  heart,  and  believe  that  your  marriage  will 
stand  liigh  upon  the  list  of  happy  ones.  As  to  your  wife's  winning  a  high 
reputation  out  of  your  house  —  if  you  care  for  ^hat ;  it  is  not  much  as  an 
addition  to  the  delights  of  love  and  pea'ce  and  a  suitable  companion  for 
life — I  have  not  the  least  doubt  of  her  power  to  make  herself  famous. 

"  I  little  thought  what  an  important  master  of  the  ceremonies  I  was 
when  I  first  gave  your  present  wife  an  introduction  to  your  mother.  Bear 
me  in  your  mind  then  as  the  unconscious  instrument  of  your  having  given 
your  best  affection  to  a  worthy  object,  and  I  shall  be  the  best-paid  master 
of  the  ceremonies  since  Nash  drove  his  coach  and  si.x  through  the  streets 
of  Bath.  Eaiilifully  yours,  Charles  Dickens." 

Among  a  heap  of  others  I  find  a  note  of  invitation  writ- 
ten on  the  9lh  of  July,  1867,  in  which  he  says:  "My 
'readings'  secretary,  whom  I  am  despatching  to  America 
at  the  end  of  this  week,  will  dine  with  me  at  Verey's  in 
Regent  Street  at  six  exact  to  be  wished  God-speed.  There 
will  only  1)1'  besides,  Wills,  Wilkie  Collins,  and  ^Mr.  Arthur 
Chappell.  Will  you  come  ?  Xo  dress.  Evening  left  quite 
free." 

I  went,  and  tlie  God-speed  party  was  a  very  pleasant 
one.  But  I  liked  best  to  have  him,  as  I  frequently  had,  all 
to  myself.  I  suppose  T  aju  not,  as  Johnson  said,  a  "  clubba- 
ble "  man.  At  all  events  I  highly  appreciate  what  the 
Irishman  called  a  tatur-tatur  dinner,  whether  the  gender 
in  tlie  case  be  masculine  or  feminine  ;  and  I  incline  to  give 
my  adherence  to  the  philosophy  of  the  axiom  that  declares 
"two  to  l»e  company,  and  three  non(\"  lint  then  I  am 
very  deaf,  and  that  has  doubtless  much  to  do  with  it. 

On  the  10th  of  .Sejttember,  1808,  Dickens  writes  : 

"TlK^mminofis  and  gonornl  polilical  bestiality  of  the  general  election  will 
come  off  in  the  ajipiopriatf  (iuy  Fawkcs  dayx.    It  was  proposeii  to  mo,  un- 
der very  flntlering  circnmHtnnce.H  indeed,  to  come  in  as  the  third  member 
for  Rirmingliam  ;  I  replied  in  what  is  now  my  .sivreotyped  phrase, '  that  no 
16 


302  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

consideration  on  earth  would  induce  me  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  rep- 
resentation of  any  place  in  the  House  of  Commons.'  Indeed,  it  is  a  dismal 
sight,  is  that  arena  altogetiier.  Its  irrationality  and  dishonesty  are  quite 
shocking.  [What  would  he  have  said  now !]  How  dislieartening  it  is, 
that  in  affairs  spiritual  or  temporal  mankind  will  not  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning, but  will  begin  with  assumptions.  Could  one  believe  without  actual 
experience  of  the  fact,  that  it  would  i)e  assumed  by  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  pestilent  boobies,  pandered  to  by  politicians,  that  the  Established  Church 
in  Ireland  has  stood  between  the  kingdom  and  popery,  when  as  a  crying 
grievance  it  has  been  popery's  trump-card. 

"  I  have  now  growled  out  my  growl,  and  feel  better. 

"  With  kind  regards,  my  dear  Trollupe, 

"  Faithfully- yours,  Charles  Dickens." 

In  the  December  of  that  year  came  another  growl,  as 
follows  : 

"  Kennedy's  Hotel,  EniNBCRcn. 

"  Mt  dear  Trollope, — I  am  reading  here,  and  had  your  letter  forward- 
ed to  me  this  morning.  The  MS.  accompanying  it  was  stopped  at  All  Tlie 
Year  Hound  office  (in  compliance  with  general  instructions  referring  to  any 
MS.  from  you)  and  was  sent  straight  to  the  printer. 

"  Oh  dear,  no !  Nobody  supposes  for  a  moment  that  the  English  Church 
will  follow  the  Irish  Establishment.  In  the  whole  great  universe  of  shain- 
mery  and  flummery  there  is  no  such  idea  floating.  Everybody  knows  that 
the  Church  of  England  as  an  endowed  establishment  is  doomed,  and 
would  be,  even  if  its  hand  were  not  perpetually  hacking  at  its  own  throat; 
but  as  was  observed  of  an  old  lady  in  gloves  in  one  of  my  Christmas  books, 
' Let  us  be  polite  or  die!'  • 

"Anthony's   ambition   [in  becoming  a  candidate   for  Beverley]  is  in- 
scrutaVjle  to  me.     Still,  it  is  the  ambition  of  many  men  ;  and  the  honester 
the  man  who  entertains  it,  the  better  for  the  rest  of  us,  I  suppose. 
"Ever,  my  dear  Trollope, 

"  Most  cordially  yours,  Charles  Dickens." 

Here  is  another  "  growl,"  provoked  by  a  species  of  char- 
latan, which  he,  to  whom  all  charlatans  were  odious,  es- 
pecially abominated — the  pietistic  charlatan  : 

"  Oh,  we  have  such  a  specimen  here !  a  man  who  discourses  extempo- 
raneously, positively  without  the  power  of  constructing  one  grammatical 
sentence;  but  who  is  (ungrammatically)  deep  in  Heaven's  confidence  on 
the  abstrusest  points,  and  discloses  some  of  his  private  information  with 
an  idiotic  complacency  insupportable  to  behold. 

"We  are  going  to  have  a  bad  winter  in  England  too  probably.  What 
with  Ireland,  and  what  with  the  last  new  government  device  of  getting  in 
the  taxes  before  they  are  due,  and  what  with  vagrants,  and  what  with 
fever,  the  prospect  is  gloomy." 


CHARLES  DICKENS.  363 

The  last  letter  I  ever  received  from  him  is  dated  the 
10th  of  November,  1869.  It  is  a  long  letter,  but  I  will 
give  only  one  passage  from  it,  whicli  has,  alas  !  a  pecul- 
iarly sad  and  touching  significance  when  read  with  the 
remembrance  of  the  catastrophe  then  hurrying  on,  which 
was  to  put  an  end  to  all  projects  and  purposes.  I  had 
been  suggesting  a  walking  excursion  across  the  Alps.  He 
writes : 

"  Walk  across  the  Alps  ?  Lord  bless  you,  I  am  '  going '  to  take  up  my 
alpenstock  and  cross  all  the  passes.  And,  I  am  '  going '  to  Italy.  I  am 
also  '  going '  up  the  Nile  to  the  second  cataract ;  and  I  am  '  going '  to  Je- 
rusalem, and  to  India,  and  likewise  to  Australia.  My  only  dimness  of  per- 
ception in  this  wise  is,  that  I  don't  know  when.  If  I  did  but  know  when, 
I  should  be  so  wonderfully  clear  about  it  all !  At  present  I  can't  see  even 
so  much  as  the  Simplon  in  consequence  of  certain  farewell  readings  and  a 
certain  new  book  (just  begun)  interposing  their  dwarfish  shadow.  But 
whenever  (if  ever)  I  change  '  going '  into  '  coming,'  I  shall  come  to  see  you. 

"With  kind  regards,  ever,  my  dear  Trollope, 

"  Your  affectionate  friend,  Charles  Dickens." 

And  those  were  the  last  words  I  ever  had  from  him ! 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

AT   LUCCA    BATHS. 

In  those  days  —  temporibiis  illis,  as  the  historians  of 
long-forgotten  centuries  say  —  there  used  to  be  a  very- 
general  exodus  of  the  English  colony  at  Florence  to  the 
baths  of  Lucca  during  the  summer  months.  Almost  all 
Italians,  who  can  in  any  wise  afford  to  do  so,  leave  the 
great  cities  nowadays  for  the  seaside,  even  as  those  do 
who  have  preceded  them  in  the  path  of  modern  luxurious 
living.  But  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  the  Flor- 
entines w^ho  did  so  were  few,  and  almost  confined  to  that 
inner  circle  of  the  fashionable  world  Avhich  partly  lived 
with  foreigners,  and  had  adopted  in  many  respects  their 
modes  and  habits.  Those  Italians,  however,  who  did  leave 
their  Florence  homes  in  the  summer,  went  almost  all  of 
them  to  Leghorn,  The  baths  of  Lucca  were  an  especially 
and  almost  exclusively  English  resort. 

It  was  possible  to  induce  the  vetturini  who  supplied 
carriages  and  horses  for  the  purpose  to  do  the  journey  to 
the  baths  in  one  day,  but  it  was  a  very  long  day,  and  it 
was  necessary  to  get  fresh  horses  at  Lucca.  There  was 
no  good  sleeping-place  between  Florence  and  Lucca — nor 
indeed  is  there  such  now — and  the  journey  from  the  capi- 
tal of  Tuscany  to  that  of  the  little  Duchy  of  Lucca,  now 
done  by  rail  in  less  than  two  hours,  was  quite  enough  for 
a  vetturino's  pair  of  horses.  And  when  Lucca  was  reached 
there  were  still  fourteen  miles,  nearly  all  collar  work,  be- 
tween that  and  the  baths,  so  that  the  jjlan  more  generally 
preferred  was  to  sleep  at  Lucca. 

The  baths  (well  known  to  the  ancient  Romans,  of  course, 
as  what  warm  springs  throughout  Europe  were  not?)  con- 
sisted of  three  settlements,  or  groups  of  houses — as  they 
do  still,  for  I  revisited  the  well-remembered  place  two  or 
three  years  ago.     There  was  the  "  Ponte,"  a  considerable 


AT   LUCCA   BATHS.  365 

village  gathered  round  the  lower  bridge  over  the  Lima,  at 
which  travellers  from  Florence  first  ai'rived.  Here  were 
the  assembly-rooms,  the  reading-room,  the  principal  baths, 
and  the  gaming-tables — for  in  those  pleasant  wicked  days 
the  remote  little  Lucca  baths  were  little  better  than  Baden 
subsequently  and  Monte  Carlo  now.  Only  we  never,  to 
the  best  of  my  memory,  suicided  ourselves,  though  it 
might  happen  occasionally  that  some  innkeeper  lost  the 
money  which  ought  to  have  gone  to  him,  because  "  the 
bank"  had  got  hold  of  it  first. 

Then,  secondly,  there  was  the  "  Villa,"  about  a  mile 
higher  up  the  lovely  little  valley  of  the  Lima,  so  called 
because  the  duke's  villa  was  situated  there.  The  Villa 
had  more  the  pretension — a  very  little  more — of  looking 
something  like  a  little  bit  of  town.  At  least  it  had  its  one 
street  paved.  The  ducal  villa  was  among  the  woods  im- 
mediately above  it. 

The  third  little  group  of  buildings  and  lodging-houses 
was  called  the  "  Bagni  Caldi."  The  hotter,  and,  I  fancy, 
the  original  springs  were  there,  and  it  was  altogether  more 
retired  and  countrified,  nestling  closely  among  the  chest- 
nut woods.  The  whole  surrounding  country,  indeed,  is  one 
great  chestnut  forest,  and  the  various  little  villages,  most 
of  them  picturesque  in  the  highest  degree,  which  crown 
the  summits  of  the  surrounding  hills,  are  all  of  them 
closely  hedged  in  by  the  chestnut  woods,  which  clothe 
the  slopes  to  the  top.  These  villages  burrow  in  what 
they  live  on  like  mice  in  a  cheese,  for  many  of  the  in- 
habitants never  taste  any  other  than  chestnut-flour  bread 
from  year's  end  to  year's  end. 

The  inhabitants  of  these  hills,  and  indeed  those  of  the 
dudiy  generally,  have  throughout  Italy  the  re])iitation  of 
being  morally  about  the  best  population  in  the  jteninsula. 
Servants  from  the  Luccliese,  and  especially  from  the  dis- 
trict I  am  Iiere  speaking  of,  were,  and  are  still.  I  believe, 
much  prized.  I>ucca,  as  many  readers  will  r«inember,  en- 
jovs  among  all  the  descri|ttive  epithets  ])opularlv  given  to 
the  dilTerent  cities  of  Italy,  that  of  Lwcii  la  i/n/itsfriufia. 

To  us  migratory  English  those  singularly  picturesque 
villages  which  capped  all  the  hills,  and  were  reached  by 


366  ^  WHAT  I    REMEMBER. 

curiously  ancient  paved  mule-paths  zig-zagging  up  among 
the  chestnut  ■svoods,  seemed  to  liave  been  created  solely 
for  artistic  and  picnic  purposes.  The  Saturnian  nature  of 
the  life  lived  in  them  maybe  conceived  from  the  informa- 
tion once  given  me  by  the  inhabitants  of  one  of  these 
mountain  settlements  in  reply  to  some  inquiry  about  the 
time  of  day,  that  it  was  always  noon  there  when  the  priest 
was  ready  for  his  dinner. 

Such  were  the  summer  quarters  of  the  English  Floren- 
tine colony,  temporibas  illis.  There  used  to  be,  I  remem- 
ber, a  somewhat  amusingly  distinctive  character  attrib- 
uted, of  course  in  a  general  way  subject  to  exceptions,  to 
the  different  groups  of  the  English  rusticating  world,  ac- 
cording to  the  selection  of  their  quarters  in  either  of  the 
above  three  little  settlements.  The  "gay"  world  pre- 
ferred the  "  Ponte,"  where  the  gaming-tables  and  ball- 
rooms were.  The  more  strictly  "  proper"  people  went  to 
live  at  the  "  ViUa,"  where  the  English  Church  service  was 
performed.  The  invalid  portion  of  the  society,  or  those 
who  wished  quiet,  and  esj)ecially  economy,  sought  the 
"Bagni  Caldi." 

In  a  general  way  we  all  desired  economy,  and  found  it. 
The  price  at  the  many  hotels  was  nine  pauls  a  day  for 
board  and  lodging,  including  Tuscan  wine,  and  was  as 
much  a  fixed  and  invariable  matter  as  a  penny  for  a  penny 
bun.  Those  who  wanted  other  wine  generally  brought  it 
with  them,  by  virtue  of  a  ducal  ordinance  which  specially 
exempted  from  duty  all  wine  brought  by  English  visitors 
to  the  Baths. 

I  dare  say,  if  I  were  to  pass  a  summer  there  now,  I 
should  find  the  atmos|)here  damp,  or  the  Aviiie  sour,  or  the 
bread  heavy,  or  the  society  heavier,  or  indulge  in  some 
such  unreasonable  and  unseasonable  grumbles  as  the  near 
neighborhood  of  fourscore  years  is  apt  to  inspire  one 
with  ;  but  I  used  to  find  it  amazingly  pleasant  once  upon 
a  time.  It  is  a  singular  fact,  which  the  remembrance  of 
those  days  suggests  to  me,  and  -which  I  recommend  to  the 
attention  of  Mr.  Gallon  and  his  co-investigators,  that  the 
girls  were  prettier  then  than  they  are  in  these  days,  or  that 
there  were  more  of  them  !     The  stupid  people,  who  are 


AT   LUCCA   BATHS.  367 

always  discovering  subjective  reasons  for  objective  obser- 
vations, are  as  impertinent  as  stupid  ! 

The  Duke  of  Lucca  used  to  do  his  utmost  to  make  the 
baths  attractive  and  acrreeable.  There  is  no  Duke  of  Lucca 
now,  as  all  the  world  knows.  The  Congress  of  Vienna  put 
an  end  to  him  by  ordaining  that,  when  the  ducal  throne  of 
Parma  should  become  vacant,  the  reigning  Duke  of  Lucca 
should  succeed  to  it,  while  his  duchy  of  Lucca  should  be 
united  to  Florence.  This  change  took  place  while  I  was 
still  a  Florentine.  The  Duke  of  Lucca  would  none  of  the 
new  dukedom  proposed  to  him.  He  abdicated,  and  his 
son  became  Duke  of  Parma,  This  son  was,  in  truth,  a 
great  ne'er-do-well,  and  very  shortly  got  murdered  in  the 
streets  of  his  new  capital  by  an  offended  husband. 

The  change  was  most  unwelcome  to  Lucca,  and  especially 
to  the  baths,  which  had  thriven  and  jjrospered  under  the 
fostering  care  of  the  old  duke.  He  used  to  pass  every 
summer  there,  and  give  constant  very  pleasant,  but  very 
little  ro^-al,  balls  at  his  villa.  The  Tuscan  satirist  Giusti, 
in  the  celebrated  little  poem  in  which  he  characterizes  the 
different  reigning  sovereigns  in  the  peninsula,  calls  him 
the  Protestant  Don  Giovanni,  and  says  that  in  the  roll  of 
tyrants  he  is  neitlier  lish  nor  Hesh. 

Of  the  first  two  epithets  I  take  it  he  deserved  the  second 
more  than  the  first.  His  Protestantizing  tendencies  might, 
I  think,  have  been  more  accurately  described  as  non-Catliol- 
icizinir.  Hut  people  are  very  apt  to  judge  in  this  matter 
after  the  fashion  of  the  would-be  dramatist,  who,  on  being 
assured  that  he  had  no  genius  for  tragedy,  concluded  that 
be  mu.st  therefore  have  one  for  corned}'.  The  duke's  Prot- 
estantism, I  suspect,  limited  itself  to,  and  showed  itself  in. 
Ids  dislike  and  resistance  to  l>eing  botiiercd  by  the  rulers 
of  neighboring  states  into  bothering  anybody  else  about 
their  religir)us  opinions.  As  for  liis  jtlaee  in  the  "roll  of 
tyrants,"  he  wa.s  always  accused  of  (or  ))raisedfor)  liberal- 
izing ideas  and  tendencies,  which  woidd  in  those  days  have 
verv  soon  put  an  end  to  him  and  his  tiny  duchy,  if  he  had 
attempted  to  govern  it  in  aeconlanee  with  them.  As  mat- 
ters were,  his  "policy,"  I  take  it,  was  ])retty  well  eoufined 
to  the  endeavor  to  make  hi.s  sovereignty  as  litth-  trouble- 


368  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

some  to  himself  or  anybody  else  as  possible.  Ilis  subjects 
were  very  lightly  taxed,  for  his  private  property  rendered 
him  perfectly  independent  of  them  as  regarded  his  own 
personal  expenditure. 

The  "gayer"  part  of  our  little  world  at  the  baths  used, 
as  I  have  said,  more  especially  to  congregate  at  the  "  Ponte," 
and  the  more  "proper"  portion  at  the  "Villa,"  for,  as  I 
have  also  said,  the  English  Church  service  was  performed 
there,  in  a  hired  room,  as  I  remember,  when  I  first  went 
there.  But  a  church  was  already  in  process  of  being  built, 
mainly  by  the  exertions  of  a  lady,  who  assuredly  cannot 
be  forgotten  by  any  one  who  ever  knew  the  baths  in  those 
days,  or  for  many  years  afterwards — Mrs.  Stisted.  Unlike 
the  rest  of  the  world,  she  lived  neither  at  the  "  Ponte,"  nor 
at  the  "  Villa,"  nor  at  the  "  Bagni  Caldi,"  but  at  "  The  Cot- 
tage," a  little  habitation  on  the  bank  of  the  stream  about 
half-way  between  the  "  Ponte  "  and  the  "  Villa."  Also  un- 
like all  the  rest  of  the  world,  she  lived  there  ])ermanently, 
for  the  ])lace  was  her  own,  or  rather  tlie  property  of  her 
husband,  Colonel  Stisted.  He  was  a  long,  lean,  gray, 
faded,  exceedingly  mild,  and  perfectly  gentlemanlike  old 
man  ;  but  she  was  one  of  the  queerest  people  my  roving 
life  has  ever  made  me  acquainted  with. 

She  was  the  Queen  of  the  Baths.  On  one  occasion  at 
the  ducal  villa,  his  highness,  Avho  spoke  English  perfectly, 
said,  as  she  entered  the  room,  "  Here  comes  the  Queen  of 
the  Baths  !"  "  He  calls  me  his  queen,"  said  she,  turning 
to  the  surrounding  circle  with  a  magnificent  wave  of  the 
hand  and  delightedly  complacent  smile.  It  was  not  ex- 
actly that  that  the  duke  had  said,  but  he  was  immensely 
amused,  as  were  we  all,  for  some  days  afterwards. 

She  was  a  stout  old  lady,  with  large,  rubrcund  face  and 
big  blue  ej'es,  surrounded  by  very  abundant  gray  curls. 
She  used  to  play,  or  profess  to  play,  the  harp,  and  adopt- 
ed, as  she  explained,  a  costume  for  the  purpose.  This 
consisted  of  a  loose,  flowing  garment,  much  like  a  muslin 
surplice,  which  fell  back  and  allowed  the  arm  to  be  seen 
when  raised  for  performance  on  her  favorite  instrument. 
The  arm  probably  was,  or  had  once  been,  a  handsome 
one.     The  large  gray  head  and  the  large  blue  eyes  and 


AT   LUCCA   BATHS.  369 

the  drooping  curls  were  also  raised  simultaneously,  and 
the  player  looked  singularly  like  the  picture  of  King  Da- 
vid similarly  employed,  which  I  have  seen  as  a  frontis- 
piece in  an  old-fashioned  prayer-book.  But  the  specialty 
of  the  performance  was  that,  as  all  present  always  said,  no 
sound  whatever  was  heard  to  issue  from  the  instrument ! 
"Attitude  is  everything,"  as  we  have  heard  in  connection 
with  other  matters  ,  but  with  dear  old  Mrs.  Stisted  at  her 
harp  it  was  absolutely  and  literally  so  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  else. 

She  and  the  good  old  colonel — he  icas  a  truly  good  and 
benevolent  man,  and,  indeed,  I  believe  she  was  a  good 
and  charitable  woman,  despite  her  manifold  absurdities 
and  eccentricities — used  to  drive  out  in  the  evening  among 
her  subjects — her  subjects,  for  neither  I  nor  anybody  else 
ever  heard  him  called  King  of  the  Baths  ! — in  an  old-fash- 
ioned, very  shabby  and  very  high -hung  ])haeton,  some- 
times with  her  niece  Charlotte — an  excellent  creature  and 
universal  favorite — by  her  side,  and  the  colonel  on  the  seat 
behind,  ready  to  offer  the  hospitality  of  the  place  by  his 
side  to  any  mortal  so  favored  by  the  queen  as  to  have  re- 
ceived such  an  invitation. 

The  poor  dear  old  colonel  used  to  ])lay  the  violoncello, 
and  did  at  least  draw  some  more  or  less  exquisite  sounds 
from  it.  But  one  winter  they  paid  a  visit  to  Rome,  and 
the  old  man  diccl  there.  She  wished,  in  accordance  doubt- 
less with  his  desire,  to  bring  back  his  body  to  be  buried 
in  the  place  they  had  inhabited  for  so  many  years,  and 
with  which  their  names  were  so  indissolubly  entwined  in 
the  memory  of  all  who  knew  them — which  means  all  the 
generations  of  nomad  frequend-rs  of  the  baths  for  many, 
many  years.  The  Protestant  burial-ground  also  was  rec- 
ogni/e<l  as  rpiasi  hers,  for  it  is  attached  to  the  church 
which  she  was  mainly  instrumental  in  building.  The  colo- 
nel's body,  therefore,  was  to  be  brought  back  from  Home 
to  be  Ijuricd  at  Lucca  Baths. 

But  sucli  an  cnterjirisc  was  not  tlu-  simplest  or  easiest 
thintr  in  the  worM.     There  were  oflicial  dillicullics  in  the 
way,  ecclesiastical  ditlicultics,  and  custom-house  difficul- 
ties of  all  sorts.     Wliere  there  is  a  will,  however,  there  is 
10* 


370  WHAT  1   REMEMBER. 

a  way.  But  the  wav  which  the  determined  will  of  the 
Queen  of  the  Baths  discovered  for  itself  upon  this  occa- 
sion was  one  which  would  probably  have  occurred  to  few 
people  in  the  world  save  herself.  She  hired  a  vetturino, 
and  told  him  that  he  was  to  convey  a  servant  of  hers  to 
the  baths  of  Lucca,  who  would  be  in  charge  of  goods 
which  would  occupy  the  entire  interior  of  the  carriage. 
She  then  obtained,  what  was  often  accorded  without  much 
difficulty  in  those  days,  from  both  the  pontitical  and  the 
Tuscan  governments,  a  lascia  passare  for  the  contents  of 
the  carriage  as  bond  fide  roha  usata — "  used  up,  or  second- 
hand goods."  And  under  this  denomination  the  poor  old 
colonel,  packed  in  the  carriage  together  with  his  beloved 
violoncello,  passed  the  gates  of  Rome  and  the  Tuscan 
frontier,  and  arrived  safely  at  the  place  of  his  latest  des- 
tination. The  servant  who  was  employed  to  conduct  this 
singular  ojoeration  did  not  above  half  like  the  job  intrust- 
ed to  him,  and  used  to  tell  afterwards  how  he  was  fright- 
ened out  of  his  wits,  and  the  driver  exceedingly  aston- 
ished, by  a  sudden /)0??i  -  m  -  m  from  the  interior  of  the 
carriage,  caused  by  the  breaking,  in  consequence  of  some 
atmospheric  change,  of  one  of  the  strings  of  the  violon- 
cello. 

Malicious  people  used  to  say  that  the  Queen  of  the 
Baths  was  innocent  of  all  deception  as  regarded  the  cus- 
tom-house officials ;  for  that  if  any  article  was  ever  hon- 
estly described  as  roba  usata,  the  old  colonel  might  be  so 
designated. 

The  queen  herself  shortly  followed  (by  another  convey- 
ance), and  was  present  at  the  interment,  on  which  occasion 
she  much  impressed  the  population  by  causing  a  superb 
crimson  chair  to  be  placed  at  the  head  of  the  grave,  in  or- 
der that  she  might  be  present  without  standing  during 
the  service.  The  chair  was  well  known,  because  the 
queen,  both  at  the  baths  and  at  Florence,  was  in  the  habit 
of  sending  it  about  to  the  houses  at  which  she  visited, 
since  she  preferred  doing  so  to  incurring  the  risk  of  the 
less  satisfactory  accommodation  her  friends  might  offer 
her. 

If  space  and  the  reader's  patience  would  allow  of  it,  I 


AT   LUCCA  BATHS.  371 

might  gossip  on  of  many  more  reminiscences  of  the  baths 
of  Lucca,  all  pleasant  or  laughable  ;  but  I  must  conclude 
by  the  story  of  a  tragedy,  ^vliich  I  will  tell,  because  it  is, 
in  many  respects,  curiously  characteristic  of  the  time  and 
place. 

The  duke,  who,  as  I  have  said,  spoke  English  perfectly 
well,  was  fond  of  surrounding  himself  with  foreign,  and 
specially  English,  dependants.  He  had,  at  the  time  of 
which  I  am  speaking,  two  English — or,  rather,  one  English 
and  one  Irish  —  chamberlains,  and  a  third,  who,  though  a 
German,  was,  from  having  married  an  Englishwoman,  and 
habitually  speaking  English,  and  living  with  Englishmen, 
much  the  same,  at  least  to  the  duke,  as  an  Englishman. 
The  Englishman  was  a  young  man  ;  the  German  an  older 
man,  and  the  father  of  a  family.  And  both  were  good, 
upright,  and  honorable  men  ;  both  long  since  gone  over  to 
the  majority. 

The  Irishman,  also  a  young  man,  was  a  bad  fellow  ;  but 
he  was  an  especial  favorite  with  the  duke,  M'ho  was  strong- 
ly attached  to  him.  It  is  not  necessary  to  print  his  name. 
He  has  gone  to  his  account.  But  it  might  nevertheless 
happen  that  the  printing  of  my  story  with  his  name  in 
these  pages  might  still  give  pain  to  somebody. 

There  was  also  that  year  an  extremely  handsome  and 
attractive  lady,  a  widow,  at  the  baths.  I  \\  ill  not  give 
her  name  eitlier  ;  fur,  though  there  was  no  sort  of  blame 
or  discredit  of  any  kind  attached  or  attachable  to  her  from 
any  part  of  my  story,  as  she  is,  I  believe,  still  living,  and 
as  the  memory  of  that  time  cannot  but  be  a  painful  one 
to  her,  it  is  as  well  to  suj>press  it.  The  lady,  as  I  have 
said,  was  handsome  and  young,  and,  of  course,  all  the 
young  fellows  who  got  a  cliance  flirted  with  her — en  tout 
bien  tout  lionneitr.  Hut  the  Irish  chamberlain  attached 
himself  to  her,  not  with  any  but  perfectly  avowable  inten- 
tions, but  nunc  seriously  than  the  other  youngsters,  and 
with  an  altogether  serious  eye  to  her  very  comfortable 
dower. 

Now  during  that  same  summer  there  was  at  the  Baths 
Mr.  Plowden,  the  banker,  from  Rome.  He  was  then  a 
voun"'  man  ;  ln'  has  recent) v  died  an  old  one  in  the  Eter- 


372  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

nal  City.  His  name  I  mention  in  telling  my  story  be- 
cause much  blame  was  cast  upon  him  at  the  time  by 
people  in  Rome,  in  Florence,  and  at  the  Baths,  Avho  did 
not  know  the  facts  as  entirely  and  accurately  as  I  knew 
them  ;  and  I  am  able  here  to  declare  publicly  what  I  have 
often  declared  privately,  tliat  he  behaved  well  and  blame- 
lessly in  the  whole  matter. 

And  })robably,  thouo-h  I  have  no  distinct  recollection 
that  it  was  so,  Plowden  may  have  also  been  smitten  by 
the  lady.  Now,  whether  the  Irishman  imagined  that  the 
younor  banker  was  his  most  formidable  rival,  or  whether 
there  may  have  been  some  previous  cause  of  ill-will  be- 
tween the  two  men,  I  cannot  say,  but  so  it  was  that  the 
chamberlain  sent  a  challenge  to  the  banker.  The  latter 
declined  to  accept  it  on  the  ground  that  he  teas  a  banker 
and  not  a  fighting -man,  and  that  his  business  position 
would  have  been  matei-ially  injured  by  his  fighting  a  duel. 
The  Irishman  might  have  made  the  most  of  this  trium])h, 
such  as  it  was  ;  but  he  was  not  content  with  doing  so,  and 
lost  none  of  the  opportunities,  wliich  the  social  habits  of 
such  a  i)lace  daily  afforded  him,  for  insulting  and  out- 
raging his  enemy.  And  he  was  continually  boasting  to 
his  friends  that  before  the  end  of  the  season  he  would 
compel  him  to  come  out  and  be  sliot  at. 

And  before  the  end  of  the  season  came  his  persistent 
efforts  were  crowned  with  success.  Plowden,  finding  his 
life  altogether  intolerable  under  the  harrow  of  the  bully's 
insolence,  at  length  one  day  challenged  him.  Then  arose 
the  question  of  the  locality  Avhere  the  duel  was  to  take 
place.  The  laws  of  the  duchy  were  very  strict  against 
duelling,  and  the  duke  himself  was  strongly  opposed  to  it. 
In  the  case  of  his  own  favorite  chamberlain,  too,  his  dis- 
pleasure was  likely  to  be  extreme.  But  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  baths  the  frontier  line  which  divides  the 
Duchy  of  Modena  from  that  of  Lucca  is  a  very  irregular 
and  intricate  one.  A  little  below  the  "Ponte"  at  the 
baths  theX-ima  falls  into  the  Serchio,  and  the  upper  valley 
of  the  latter  river  is  of  a  very  romantic  and  beautiful 
character.  Now  we  all  knew  that  hereabouts  there  were 
portions  of  Modenese  territory  interpenetrating  that  of 


AT   LUCCA   BATHS.  373 

the  Ducliy  of  Lucca,  but  none  of  us  knew  llie  exact  line 
of  the  boundary.  And  the  favorite  chamberhiin,  with  true 
Irish  impudence,  undertook  to  obtain  exact  information 
from  the  duke  himself. 

There  was  a  ball  that  night,  at  Avhich  the  whole  of  the 
society  was  present ;  and,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  I  do 
not  think  there  was  a  man  there  who  did  not  know  that 
the  duel  was  to  be  fought  on  the  morrow,  except  the  duke 
himself.  Many  of  the  women  even  knew  it  perfectly  well. 
The  chamberlain,  getting  the  duke  into  conversation  on 
the  subject  of  the  frontier,  learned  from  him  that  a  cer- 
tain highly  romantic  gorge,  opening  out  from  the  valley 
of  the  Serchio,  and  called  Turrite  Cava,  which  he  pre- 
tended to  take  an  interest  in  as  a  place  fitted  for  a  j)icnic, 
■was  within  the  Modenese  frontier. 

All  was  arranged,  therefore,  for  the  meeting  with  pistols 
on  the  following  morning  ;  and  the  combatants  i)roceed- 
ed  to  the  spot  fixed  on,  some  five  or  six  miles,  I  think,  from 
the  Baths.  Plowden,  who,  as  a  sedate  business  man,  was 
less  intimate  with  the  generality  of  the  young  men  at  the 
Baths,  was  accompanied  only  by  his  second  ;  his  adversary 
was  attended  by  a  whole  cohort  of  accpiaintances — really 
far  more  after  the  fashion  of  a  party  going  to  a  picnic,  or 
some  other  party  of  pleasure,  than  in  the  usual  guise  of 
men  bent  on  such  an  errand. 

Plowden  had  never  fired  a  ])istol  in  his  life,  and  knew 
about  as  much  of  the  managenunt  of  one  as  an  archbishop. 
The  other  was  an  old  duellist,  and  a  practised  performer 
with  the  weapon.  All  this  was  perfectly  well  known,  and 
the  young  men  around  the  Irishman  were  earnest  with 
him  during  their  drive  to  the  ground  not  to  take  his  a<i- 
versary's  life,  ]»eseeching  liim  to  ninemln'r  how  heavy  a 
load  on  his  mind  would  such  a  deed  In-  duriiiix  the  whole 
future  (jf  his  own.  Not  a  soul  of  tiie  whole  society  of  the 
Baths,  who  l»y  this  time  knew  what  was  going  on  to  a 
man,  and  almost  to  a  woman  (my  mother,  it  mav  l)e  ob- 
8erve<],  had  not  bci-n  at  tlii*  ball,  and  knew  notliiiig  about 
it),  doubted  tiiat  I'lowdcn  was  going  out  to  he  shot  as 
certainly  as  a  bullock  goes  into  tlie  Hlaughter-lioiiso  to  be 
killed. 


374  WHAT   1   REMEMBEK.- 

Tlie  Irishman,  in  reply  to  all  the  exhortations  of  his 
companions,  jauntily  told  them  not  to  distress  themselves ; 
he  had  no  intention  of  killing  the  fellow,  but  would  con- 
tent himself  with  "winorinix"  him.  lie  would  have  his 
right  arm  off  as  surely  as  he  now  had  it  on  ! 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  the  men  were  put  up.  At  the 
first  shot  the  Irishman's  well-directed  bullet  whistled  close 
to  Plowden's  head,  but  the  random  shot  of  the  latter  struck 
his  adversary  full  in  the  groin. 

He  was  hastily  carried  to  a  little  osteria,  which  stood 
(and  still  stands)  by  the  side  of  the  road  which  runs  up 
the  valley  of  the  Serchio,  at  no  great  distance  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Turrite  Cava  gorge.  There  was  a  young 
medical  man  among  those  gathered  there,  who  shook  his 
head  over  the  victim,  but  did  not,  I  thought,  seem  very 
well  up  to  dealing  with  the  case. 

One  of  my  mother's  earliest  and  most  intimate  friends 
at  Florence  was  a  Lady  Sevestre,  who  Avas  then  at  the 
Baths  with  her  husband.  Sir  Thomas  Sevestre,  an  old  Ind- 
ian army  surgeon.  He  was  a  very  old  man,  and  was  not 
much  known  to  the  younger  society  of  the  place.  But  it 
struck  me  that  he  was  the  man  for  the  occasion.  So  I 
rushed  off  to  the  Baths  in  one  of  the  hagJierini  (as  the  little 
light  gigs  of  the  country  are  called)  which  had  conveyed 
the  parties  to  the  ground,  and  knocked  up  Sir  Thomas. 
Of  course,  all  the  story  came  new  to  him,  and  he  was  very 
much  inclined  to  wash  his  hands  of  it.  But  on  my  repre- 
sentations that  a  life  was  at  stake,  his  old  professional 
habits  prevailed,  and  he  agreed  to  go  back  with  me  to 
Turrite  Cava. 

But  no  persuasions  could  induce  him  to  trust  himself  to 
a  hfigJicrbio.  And  truly  it  would  have  shaken  the  old  man 
well-nigh  to  pieces.  There  was  no  other  carriage  to  be 
had  in  a  hurry.  And  at  last  he  allowed  me  to  get  an  arm- 
chair rigged  with  a  couple  of  poles  for  bearers,  and  placed 
himself  in  it — not  before  he  had  taken  the  precaution  of 
slinging  a  bottle  of  pale  ale  to  either  pole  of  his  equipage. 
He  wore  a  very  wide-brimmed  straw  hat,  a  suit  of  pro- 
fessional black,  and  carried  a  large  white  sunshade.  And 
thus  accoutred,  and  accompanied  by  four  stalwart  bearers. 


AT   LUCCA  BATHS.  375 

he  started,  while  I  ran  by  the  side  of  the  cliair,  as  queer- 
looking  a  party  as  can  well  be  imagined,  I  can  see  it  all 
now  ;  and  should  have  been  highly  amused  at  the  time  had 
I  not  very  strongly  suspected  that  I  was  taking  him  to  the 
bedside  of  a  dying  man. 

And  when  he  reached  his  patient,  a  very  few  minutes 
sufficed  for  the  old  surgeon  to  pronounce  the  case  an  ab- 
solutely hopeless  one.  After  a  few  hours  of  agony  the 
bully,  who  had  insisted  on  bringing  this  fate  on  himself, 
died  that  same  afternoon. 

Then  came  the  question  who  was  to  tell  the  duke.  "Who 
it  was  that  undertook  that  disagreeable  but  necessary  task 
I  forget.  But  the  duke  came  out  to  the  little  osteria  im- 
mediately on  hearing  of  the  catastrophe  ;  also  the  English 
clergyman  officiating  at  the  Baths  came  out.  And  the 
scene  in  that  large,  nearly  bare,  upper  chamber  of  the 
little  inn  was  a  strange  one.  The  clergyman  began  pray- 
ing by  the  dying  man's  bedside,  while  the  numerous  as- 
semblage in  the  room  all  knelt,  and  the  duke  knelt  with 
them,  interrupting  the  prayers  with  his  sobs  after  the  un- 
controlled fashion  of  the  Italians. 

He  was  very,  very  angry.  But  in  unblushing  defiance 
of  all  equity  and  reason  his  anger  turned  whollj^  against 
Plowden,  who,  of  course,  had  placed  himself  out  of  the 
small  potentate's  reach  within  a  very  few  minutes  after 
the  catastro])he.  But  the  duke  strove  by  personal  appli- 
cation to  induce  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  to  banish 
Plowden  from  his  dominions,  which,  to  the  young  banker, 
one  branch  of  whose  business  was  at  Florence  and  one  at 
Rome,  would  have  been  a  very  serious  matter.  Wnt  this, 
])Oor  old  rii/ro,  more  just  and  reasonable  in  this  case  than 
ills  brotla-r  jiotentate,  the  Protestant  Don  Giovanni  of 
Lucca,  refused  to  do. 

So  our  ])Ieasant  time  at  the  Baths,  for  that  season  at 
least,  ended  tragically  enough  ;  and  whenever  I  have  since 
visited  that  singularly  romantic  glen  of  Turrite  Cava,  its 
deep,  rock-shclu  ifd  shadows  have  l)een  peopkd  for  me  by 
the  actors  in  that  day's  bloody  work. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE   GAEROWS. SCIEXTIFIC    CONGRESSES. MY   FIRST 

MARRIAGE. 

It  was,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  much  about  the 
same  time  as  that  visit  of  Charles  Dickens  which  I  have 
chronicled  in  the  last  chapter  but  one,  which  turned  out 
to  be  eventually  so  fateful  a  one  to  me,  as  the  correspond- 
ence there  given  shows,  that  my  mother  received  another 
visit,  which  was  destined  to  pLay  an  equally  influential 
part  in  the  directing  and  fashioning  of  my  life.  Equally 
influential  perhaps  I  ought  not  to  say,  inasmuch  as  one- 
and-twenty  years  (with  the  prospect  I  hope  of  more)  are 
more  important  than  seventeen.  But  both  the  visits  I  am 
speaking  of  as  having  occurred  within  a  few  days  of  each 
other  were  big  with  fate,  to  me,  in  the  same  department 
of  human  affairs. 

The  visit  of  Dickens  was  destined  eventually  to  bring 
me  my  second  wife,  as  the  reader  has  seen.  The  visit  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Garrow  to  the  Via  dei  Malcontenti,  much 
about  the  same  tmie,  brought  me  my  first. 

The  Arno  and  the  Tiber  both  take  their  rise  in  the  flanks 
of  Falterona.  It  was  on  the  banks  of  the  first  that  my 
first  married  life  was  passed  ;  on  those  of  the  more  south- 
ern river  that  the  largest  portion  of  my  second  wedded 
ha])]>iness  was  enjoyed. 

Why  Mr.  and  IMrs.  Garrow  called  on  my  mother  I  do 
not  remember.  Somebody  had  given  them  letters  of  in- 
troduction to  us,  but  I  forget  who  it  was.  Mr.  Garrow 
w^as  the  son  of  an  Indian  officer  by  a  high-caste  Brahmin 
woman,  to  whom  lie  was  married.  I  believe  that  unions 
between  Englishmen  and  native  women  are  common 
enough.  But  a  marriage,  such  as  that  of  my  wife's  grand- 
father I  am  assured  was,  is  rare,  and  rarer  still  a  marriage 
with  a  woman  of  high  caste.     Her  name  was  Sultana.     I 


THE   G ARROWS.  377 

have  never  heard  of  any  other  name.  Jose})h  Garrow,  my 
father-in-law,  was  sent  to  England  at  an  eai'ly  age,  and 
never  again  saw  either  of  his  parents,  who  both  died 
young.  His  grandfather  was  an  old  Scotch  schoolmaster 
at  Iladley,  near  LJarnet,  and  his  great-uncle  was  the  well- 
known  Judge  Garrow.  My  father-in-law  carried  about 
with  him  verv  unmistakable  evidence  of  his  Eastern  origin 
in  his  yellow  skin,  and  the  tinge  of  the  white  of  his  eyes, 
which  was  almost  that  of  an  Indian.  He  had  been  edu- 
cated for  the  bar,  but  had  never  practised,  or  attempted 
to  do  so,  having  while  still  a  young  man  married  a  wife 
with  considerable  means.  lie  was  a  decidedly  clever  man, 
especially  in  an  artistic  direction,  having  been  a  very  good 
musician  and  performer  on  the  violin,  and  a  draughtsman 
and  caricaturist  of  considerable  talent. 

The  lady  he  married  had  been  a  Miss  Abrams,  but  was 
at  the  time  he  married  her  the  widow  of  (I  believe)  a  naval 
officer  named  Fisher.  She  had  by  her  first  husband  one 
son  and  one  daughter.  There  had  been  three  Misses 
Abrams,  Jewesses  by  race  undoubtedly,  but  Christians  by 
baptism,  whose  parent  or  parents  had  come  to  this  coun- 
try in  the  suite  of  some  Hanoverian  minister,  in  Avhat  ca- 
pacity I  never  heard.  They  were  all  three  exceptionally 
accomplished  musicians,  and  seem  to  have  been  well,  known 
in  the  higher  social  circles  of  the  musical  world.  One  of 
the  sisters  was  the  authoress  of  many  once  well-known 
songs,  especially  of  one  song  called  "  Crazy  Jane,"  which 
had  a  considerable  vogue  m  its  day.  I  remember  hearing 
old  John  Cramer  say  that  my  mother-in-law  could,  while 
hearing  a  inimerous  orchestra,  single  out  any  instrument 
which  had  played  a  false  note — and  this  he  seemed  to 
think  a  very  remarkable  and  exceptional  feat.  She  was 
past  fifty  when  Mr.  Garrow  married  her,  but  slie  bore  him 
one  daughter,  and  when  they  came  to  Florence  both  girls, 
Tlieodosia,  Garrow's  daughter,  and  Harriet  Fisher,  her 
elder  half-sister,  were  with  them,  and  at  their  second  morn- 
ing call  both  came  with  them. 

The  closest  union  and  affection  subsisted  between  the 
two  girls,  and  ever  continued  till  tin-  untinu'ly  death  of 
Harriet.  HtJt  never  were  two  sisters,  or  half-sisters,  or 
inched  aii\'  two  <;irN  at  all,  more  unlike  each  other. 


378  WHAT   I    REMEMBER. 

Harriet  was  neither  specially  clever  nor  specially  pretty, 
but  she  was,  I  think,  perhaps  the  most  absolutely  unselfish 
human  beinw  1  ever  knew,  and  one  of  the  most  loving 
hearts.  And  her  position  was  one  that,  except  in  a  nature 
framed  of  the  kindliest  clay,  and  moulded  by  the  rarest 
perfection  of  all  the  gentlest  and  self-denying  virtues,  must 
have  soured,  or  at  all  events  crushed  and  quenched,  the 
individual  placed  in  such  circumstances.  She  was  simply 
nobody  in  the  family  save  the  ministering  angel  in  the 
house  to  all  of  them.  I  do  not  mean  that  any  of  the  vul- 
gar preferences  existed  which  are  sometimes  supposed  to 
turn  some  less  favored  member  of  a  household  into  a  Cin- 
derella. There  was  not  the  slightest  shadow  of  anything 
of  the  sort.  But  no  visitors  came  to  the  house  or  sought 
the  acquaintance  of  the  family  for  her  sake.  She  had  the 
dear,  and,  to  her,  priceless  love  of  her  sister.  But  no  ad- 
miration, no  pride  of  father  or  mother  fell  to  her  share. 
Ihr  life  was  not  made  brilliant  by  the  notice  and  friend- 
ship of  distinguished  men.  Everything  was  for  the 
younger  sister.  And  through  long  years  of  this  eclipse, 
and  to  the  last,  she  fairly  worshi})ped  the  sister  who 
eclipsed  her.  Garrow,  to  do  him  justice,  was  equally  af- 
fectionate in  his  manner  to  both  girls,  and  entirely  im- 
partial m  every  respect  that  concerned  the  material  well- 
being  of  them.  But  Theodosia  was  always  placed  on  a 
pedestal  on  which  there  was  no  room  at  all  for  Harriet. 
Nor  could  the  closest  intimacy  with  the  family  discover 
any  faintest  desire  on  her  part  to  share  the  pedestal.  She 
was  content  and  entirely  happy  in  enjoying  the  reflected 
brightness  of  the  more  gifted  sister. 

Nor  would,  perhaps,  a  shrewd  judge,  whose  estimate  of 
men  and  Avomen  had  been  formed  by  observation  of  aver- 
age humanitv,  have  thought  that  the  ))Osition  which  I  have 
described  as  that  of  the  younger  of  these  two  sisters  was 
altogether  a  morally  wholesome  one  for  her.  But  the 
shrewd  judge  would  have  been  wrong.  There  never  was 
a  humbler,  as  there  never  was  a  more  loving  soul,  than 
that  of  the  Theodosia  Garrow  who  became,  for  my  perfect 
haj)i)iness,  Theodosia  Trollope.  And  it  was  these  two 
qualities  of  humbleness  and  lovingness  that,  acting  like 


THE   GARROWS.  379 

invincible  antiseptics  on  the  moral  nature,  saved  her  from 
all  "spoiling" — from  any  tendency  of  any  amount  of 
flattery  and  admiration  to  engender  selfishness  or  self-suf- 
ficiency. Nothing  more  beautiful  in  (he  way  of  family 
affection  could  be  seen  than  the  tie  which  united  in  the 
closest  bonds  of  sisterly  affection  those  two  so  differently 
constituted  sisters.  Very  many  saw  and  knew  what  Theo- 
dosia  was  as  my  wife.  Very  few  indeed  ever  knesv  what 
she  was  in  her  own  home  as  a  sister. 

When  I  married  Theodosia  Garrow  she  possessed  just 
one  thousand  pounds  in  her  own  right,  and  little  or  no 
prospect  of  ever  possessing  any  more  ;  while  I  on  my  side 
possessed  nothing  at  all,  save  the  prospect  of  a  strictly 
bread-and-cheese  competency  at  the  death  of  my  mother, 
and  "  the  farm  which  I  carried  under  my  hat,"  as  some- 
body calls  it.  The  marriage  was  not  made  with  the  full 
approbation  of  my  f ather-in-laAv ;  but  entirely  in  accord- 
ance with  the  wishes  of  my  mother,  who  simply,  dear  soul, 
saw  in  it,  what  she  said,  that  "  Theo  "  was,  of  all  the  girls 
she  knew,  the  one  she  should  best  like  as  a  daughter-in- 
law.  And  here  again  the  wise  folks  of  the  world  (and 
I  among  them  !)  would  hardly  have  said  that  the  step  I 
then  took  was  calculated,  according  to  all  the  recognized 
chances  and  probabilities  of  human  affairs,  to  lead  to  a 
life  of  contentment  and  happiness.  I  suppose  it  ought 
not  to  have  done  so.  But  it  did.  It  would  be  mon- 
strously inadequate  to  say  that  I  never  repented  it.  What 
should  I  not  liave  lost  had  I  not  done  it  ! 

As  usual  my  cards  turned  up  (rumps,  but  they  began 
to  do  so  in  a  way  that  caused  iiic  iimkIi,  and  my  wife 
more,  urief  at  the  time.  Within  (wo  vears  afd-r  inv  mar- 
riagc  ])oor,  dear,  good,  hning  Harriet  caught  small-p<ix 
atxl  flied.  She  was  much  more  largely  endowed  than 
her  half-sister,  to  whom  she  be<paeathed  all  she  had. 

She  had  a  brother,  as  I  have  said  above.  But  he  had  :il- 
toirether  alienatrfl  himself  from  his  familv  by  becoinin<'' 
a  Konian  Catholic  priest.  There  was  no  ojh'U  quarrel.  I 
met  hiiM  fre(|iieiitiy  in  after-years  at  Ciarrow's  table  at 
Torquay,  and  rememl»er  his  bitter  complaints  that  he  was 
tempted  In'  the  apjx'arancc  of  things  at  table  which  he 


380  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

ou_2:ht  not  to  eat.  It  would  have  been  of  no  use  to  give 
or  bequeath  money  to  him,  for  it  would  have  gone  im- 
mediately to  Komanist  ecclesiastical  purposes.  lie  had 
nearly  stripped  himself  of  his  own  considerable  means, 
reserving  to  himself  only  the  bare  competence  on  which 
a  Catholic  priest  might  live.  He  was  altogether  a  very 
queer  fish.  I  remember  his  coming  to  me  once  in  tear- 
ful but  very  angr}^  mood,  because,  as  he  said,  I  had  guile- 
fully spread  snares  for  his  soul !  I  had  not  the  smallest 
comprehension  of  his  meaning  till  I  discovered  that  his 
woe  and  wrath  were  occasioned  by  my  having  sent  him  as 
a  present  Berington's  "  Middle  Ages."  I  had  fancied  that 
his  course  of  studies  and  line  of  thought  would  have  made 
the  book  interesting  to  him,  utterly  ignorant  or  oblivious 
of  the  fact  that  it  labored  under  the  disqualification  of 
ai:)poaring  in  the  "Index." 

I  take  it  I  knew  little  about  the  "  Index  "  in  those  days. 
In  after-years,  when  three  or  four  of  my  own  books  had 
been  placed  in  its  columns,  I  was  better  informed.  I  re- 
member a  very  elegant  lady  who,having  overheard  my  pres- 
ent Avife  mention  the  fact  that  a  recently  published  book 
of  mine  had  been  placed  in  the  "  Index,"  asked  her,  with 
the  intention  of  being  extremely  polite  and  complimentary, 
whether  her  (my  wife's)  books  had  been  put  in  the  "Index." 
And  when  the  latter  modestly  replied  that  she  had  not 
written  anything  that  could  merit  such  a  distinction,  her 
interlocutor,  patting  her  on  the  shoulder  with  a  kindly  and 
])atronizing  air,  said,  "  Oh,  my  dear,  I  am  sure  they  will 
be  })laced  there.     They  certainly  ought  to  be." 

Mrs.  GarroAV,  my  wife's  mother,  was  not,  I  think,  an 
amiable  woman.  She  must  have  been  between  seventy 
and  eighty  when  I  first  knew  her  ;  but  she  was  still  vigor- 
ous, and  had  still  a  pair  of  what  must  once  have  been  mag- 
nificent, and  were  still  brilliant  and  fierce  black  eyes.  She 
was  in  no  wise  a  clever  woman,  nor  was  our  dear  Harriet 
a  clever  girl.  Garrow,  on  the  other  hand,  and  his  daughter 
were  both  very  markedly  clever,  and  this  produced  a  close- 
ness of  companionsliip  and  alliance  between  the  father  and 
daughter  which  painfully  excited  the  jealousy  of  the  wife 
and  mother.    But  it  was  totally  impossible  for  her  to  cabal 


THE   G ARROWS.  381 

with  her  daughter  against  the  object  of  her  jealousy. 
Harriet,  always  seeking  to  be  a  peacemaker,  was  ever,  if 
peace  could  not  be  made,  stanchly  on  Theo's  side.  I  am 
afraid  that  Mrs.  Garrow  did  not  love  her  second  daughter 
at  all ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  suspect  that  ray  marriage  was 
in  some  degree  facilitated  by  her  desire  to  get  Theo  out 
of  the  house.  She  was  a  very  fierce  old  lady,  and  did  not, 
I  fear,  contribute  to  the  happiness  of  any  member  of  her 
family. 

How  well  I  remember  the  appearance  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Garrow  and  those  two  fjirls  in  niv  mother's  drawinoj-room 
in  the  Via  dei  Malcontent!.  The  two  girls,  I  remember, 
were  dressed  exactly  alike  and  very  doirdily.  They  had 
just  arrived  in  Florence  from  Tours,  I  think,  where  they 
had  passed  a  year,  or  perhaps  two,  since  quitting  "  The 
Braddons  "  at  Torquay  ;  and  everything  about  them  from 
top  to  toe  was  provincial,  not  to  say  shabby.  It  was  a 
Friday,  my  mother's  reception-day,  and  the  room  soon 
filled  with  gayly  dressed  and  smart  peo])le,  with  more  than 
one  pretty  girl  among  them.  But  I  had  already  got  into 
conversation  witli  Theodosia  Garrow,  and,  to  the  gross 
neglect  of  my  duties  as  master  of  the  house,  and  to  the 
scandal  of  more  than  one  fair  lady,  so  I  remained,  till  a 
summons  more  than  twice  repeated  by  her  father  took  her 
away. 

It  was  not  that  I  had  fallen  in  love  at  first  sight,  as  the 
phrase  is,  by  any  means.  But  I  at  once  felt  that  I  had 
got  hold  of  something  of  a  quite  other  calibre  of  intelli- 
gence from  anytliing  I  liad  been  recently  accustomed  to 
meet  with  in  those  around  me,  and  with  a  moral  nature 
that  was  svmpathetic  to  my  own.  And  I  found  it  very 
delightful.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that,  had  her  jtersonal  ap- 
pearance been  other  than  it  was,  I  should  not  probably 
have  found  her  conversation  e<|ually  delightful.  Ihit  I 
am  sure  tliat  it  is  e(|ually  true  that  had  she  been  in  face, 
figiire,  and  person  all  she  was,  and  at  the  same  time  stupid, 
or  evi-n  not  synipallu-l  ic,  I  slioiiM  iiol  have  been  equally 
attracted  to  her. 

She  was  by  no  means  what  would  have  been  recognized 
by  most  men  as  a  beautiful  girl.     The  specialties  of  her 


382  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

appearance,  in  tlie  first  place,  were  in  a  great  measure  due 
to  the  singular  mixture  of  races  from  which  slie  had 
sprung.  One  half  of  her  blood  was  Jewish,  one  quarter 
Scotch,  and  one  quarter  pure  Brahmin.  Her  face  was  a 
long  oval,  too  long  and  too  lanky  towards  the  lower  part 
of  it  for  beauty.  Iler  complexion  was  somewhat  dark, 
and  not  good.  The  mouth  was  mobile,  expressive,  per- 
haps more  habitually  framed  for  pathos  and  the  gentler 
feelings  than  for  laughter.  The  jaw  was  narrow,  the 
teeth  good  and  white,  but  not  very  regular.  She  had  a 
magnificent  wealth  of  very  dark  brown  hair,  not  without 
a  gleam  here  and  there  of  what  descriptive  Avriters,  of 
course,  would  call  gold,  but  which  really  was  more  accu- 
rately copper  color.  And  this  grand  and  luxuriant  wealth 
of  hair  grew  from  the  roots  on  the  head  to  the  extremity 
of  it,  at  her  waist,  when  it  was  let  down,  in  the  most  beau- 
tiful ripples.  But  the  great  feature  and  glory  of  tlie  face 
M'cre  the  eyes,  among  the  largest  I  ever  saw,  of  a  deep 
clear  gray,  rather  deeply  set,  and  changing  in  expression 
with  every  impression  that  passed  over  her  mind.  The 
forehead  was  M'ide,  and  largely  developed  both  in  those 
parts  of  it  which  are  deemed  to  indicate  imaginative  and 
idealistic  power,  and  those  that  denote  strongly  marked 
perceptive  and  artistic  faculties.  The  latter,  perhaps,  were 
the  more  prominently  marked.  The  Indian  strain  showed 
itself  in  the  perfect  gracefulness  of  a  very  slender  and 
elastic  figure,  and  in  the  exquisite  elegance  and  beauty  of 
the  modelling  of  the  extremities. 

That  is  not  the  description  of  a  beautiful  girl.  But  it 
is  the  fact  that  the  face  and  figure  very  accurately  so  de- 
scribed were  eminently  attractive  to  me  physically,  as  well 
as  the  mind  and  intelligence,  which  informed  tlicm,  Avere 
spiritually.  They  Avere  much  more  attractive  to  me  than 
those  of  many  a  splendidly  beautiful  girl,  the  immense 
superiority  of  whose  beauty  nobody  knew  better  than  I. 
Why  should  this  have  been  so  ?  That  is  one  of  the  mys- 
teries to  the  solution  of  which  no  moral  or  physical  or 
psychical  research  has  ever  brought  us  an  iota  nearer. 

I  am  giving  here  an  account  of  the  first  impression  my 
future  wife  made  on  me.     I  had  no  thought  of  wooing 


SCIENTIFIC   CONGRESSES.  383 

and  winning  her,  for,  as  I  have  said,  I  was  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  marry.  Meanwhile  she  was  becoming  acclimatized 
to  Florentine  society.  She  no  longer  looked  doxcdy  when 
entering  a  room,  but  very  much  the  reverse  ;  and  the  little 
Florentine  world  began  to  recognize  that  they  had  got 
something  very  much  like  a  new  Corinne  among  them. 
But  of  course  I  rarely  got  a  chance  of  monopolizing  her 
as  I  had  done  during  that  first  afternoon.  We  were,  how- 
ever, constantly  meeting,  and  were  becoming  ever  more 
and  more  close  friends.  When  the  Garrows  left  Florence 
for  the  summer,  I  visited  them  at  Lucerne,  and  subse- 
quently met  them  at  Venice.  It  was  the  year  of  the 
meeting  of  the  Scientific  Congress  in  that  city. 

That  was  a  j)]easant  autumn  in  Venice.  By  that  time 
I  had  become  pretty  well  over  head  and  ears  in  love  with 
the  girl  by  whose  side  I  generally  contrived  to  sit  in  the 
gondolas,  in  the  Piazza  in  the  evening,  et  caetera.  It  was 
lovely  September  weather — just  the  time  for  Venice.  The 
summer  days  Avere  drawing  in,  but  there  was  the  moon, 
quite  light  enough  on  the  lagoons  ;  and  we  Avcre  a  great 
deal  happier  than  the  day  was  long. 

Those  Scientific  Congresses,'  of  which  that  at  Venice 
was  the  seventh  and  the  last,  played  a  curious  part,  which 
has  not  been  much  observed  or  noted  by  historians,  in  the 
story  of  the  winning  of  Italian  independence.  I  believe 
that  the  first  congress,  at  Pisa,  I  think,  was  really  got  up 
by  men  of  science,  with  a  view  to  furthering  their  own 
objects  and  pursuits.  It  was  followed  by  others  in  succes- 
sive autumns  at  Lucca,  Milan,  Genoa,  Naples,  Florence, 
and  this  seventh  an<l  last  at  V(>nice.  But  Italy  was  in 
those  days  thinking  of  other  matters  than  science.  The 
whole  air  was  full  of  ideas,  very  discordant  all  of  them, 
and  vague  most  of  them,  of  political  change.  The  gov- 
ernments of  the  peninsula  tJKUight  twice,  and  more  than 
twifc,  before  they  would  grant  ])crrnission  for  the  first  of 
these  meetings.  Meetings  of  any  kind  were  ol)jects  of 
fear  and  mistrust  to  the  rulers.  Those  of  'I'uscanv,  who 
were  by  comjtarison  liberal,  and,  as  known  to  be  such, 
were  more  or  less  objects  of  suspicion  to  the  Austrian, 
Roman,  an<l  Xeapolitan  governments,  led  the  wav  in  £civ- 


384  WFIAT   I   REMEMBER. 

ing  the  permission  asked  for  ;  and  perhaps  thought  that  an 
assembly  of  geologists,  entomologists,  astronomers,  and 
matliematicians  might  act  as  a  safety-valve,  and  divert 
men's  minds  from  more  dangerous  subjects.  But  the  cur- 
rent of  the  times  was  running  too  strongly  to  be  so  di- 
verted, and  proved  too  much  for  the  authorities  and  for 
the  real  men  of  science,  who  were,  at  least  some  of  them, 
anxious  to  make  the  congresses  really  what  they  professed 
to  be. 

Gradually  these  meetings  became  more  and  more  mere 
social  gatherings  in  outward  appearance,  and  revolution- 
ary propagandist  assemblies  in  reality.  As  regards  the 
former  aspect  of  them,  the  different  cities  strove  to  outdo 
each  other  in  the  magnificence  and  generosity  of  their  re- 
ception of  their  "scientific"  guests.  Masses  of  publica- 
tions were  prepared,  especially  topographical  and  histori- 
cal accounts  of  the  city  which  played  Amphytrion  for  the 
occasion,  and  presented  gratuitously  to  the  members  of 
the  association.  Merely  little  guide-books,  of  which  a  few 
hundred  copies  were  needed  in  the  case  of  the  earlier  meet- 
ings, they  became  in  the  case  of  the  latter  ones  at  Naples, 
Genoa,  Milan,  and  Venice,  large  and  magnificently  printed 
tomes,  j)repared  by  the  most  competent  authorities  and 
jDroduced  at  a  very  great  expense. 

Venice  especially  outdid  all  her  rivals,  and  printed  an 
account  of  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic,  embracing  history, 
topography,  science  in  all  its  branches,  and  artistic  story, 
in  four  huge  and  magnificent  volumes,  Avhich  remains  to 
the  present  day  by  far  the  best  topographical  monograph 
that  any  city  of  the  peninsula  possesses.  This  truly  splen- 
did work,  whicli  brought  out  in  the  ordinary  way  could 
not  have  been  sold  for  less  than  six  or  eight  guineas,  Avas 
])resented,  together  with  much  other  ])rinted  matter — an 
enormous  lithographed  panorama  of  Venice  and  her  la- 
goons, some  five  feet  long,  in  a  handsome  roll  cover,  I 
remember  among  them — to  every  "member"  on  his  en- 
rolment as  such. 

Then  there  were  conceits  and  excursions  and  great 
daily  dinners  the  gayest  and  most  enjoyable  imaginable, 
at  which  both  sexes  were  considered  to  be  equally  scien- 


SCIENTIFIC   CONGRESSES.  385 

tific  and  equally  welcome.  Tlie  dinners  were  not  abso- 
lutelv  gratuitous,  but  the  tickets  for  them  were  issued  at 
a  price  very  much  inferior  to  the  real  cost  of  the  enter- 
tainment. And  all  this,  it  must  be  understood,  was  done 
not  by  any  subscription  of  members  scientific  or  other- 
wise, but  by  the  city  and  its  municipality;  the  motive  for 
such  expenditure  being  the  highly  characteristic  Italian 
one  of  rivalling  and  outdoing  in  magnificence  other  cities 
and  municipalities,  or,  in  the  historical  language  of  Italy, 
"  communes." 

Old  Rome,  with  her  dependent  cities,  made  no  sign 
during  all  these  autumns  of  ever  -  increasing  festivity. 
Pity  that  they  should  have  come  to  an  end  before  she  did 
so  ;  for  at  the  rate  at  which  things  were  going,  we  should 
all,  at  least,  have  been  crowned  on  the  Capitol,  if  not  made 
Roman  senators,  pour  Vamour  du  Grec,  as  the  savant  says 
in  the  "  Precieuses  Ridicules,"  if  we  had  gone  to  the  Eter- 
nal City. 

But  the  fact  was,  that  the  soi-disant  'ologists  kicked  up 
their  heels  a  little  too  audaciously  at  Venice  under  Aus- 
tria's nose  ;  and  the  government  thought  it  high  time  to 
put  an  end  to  "  science." 

For  instance,  Prince  Canino  made  his  appearance  in  the 
uniform  of  the  Roman  National  Guard  !  This  was  a  little 
too  much ;  and  the  prince,  all  prince  and  Bonaparte  as  he 
was,  was  marched  off  to  the  frontier.  Canino  had  every 
right  to  be  there  as  a  man  of  science  ;  for  his  acquire- 
ments in  many  branches  of  science  were  large  and  real; 
and  specially  as  an  entomologist  he  was  known  to  be  prob- 
ablv  the  first  in  Italv.  But  he  was  the  man  who,  when 
selling  his  ])riiicipalit y  of  ("anino,  insisted  on  the  insertion 
in  the  legal  inslruniciit  of  a  claim  to  an  additional  live 
])auls  (value  about  two  shillings),  for  the  title  of  prince 
which  was  attached  to  the  possessor  of  the  estates  he  M'as 
Belling.  lie  was  an  out-and-out  avowed  Re])ublican,  and 
was  the  blackest  of  black  sheep  to  all  the  constituted  tx<^v- 
ernnients  of  the  peninsula,  lie  looked  as  little  as  he  felt 
and  thought  like  a  prince.  lie  was  a  paunchy,  oily-look- 
ing, black-haired  man,  whose  somewhat  heavy  face  was 
illumined  }»y  a  brilliant  black  eye  full  of  humor  and  a 
17 


386  AVIIAT   I   REMEMBER. 

mouth  expressive  of  good-nature  ami  bonhomie.  His  ap- 
pearance in  the  proscribed  uniform  might  have  been  con- 
sidered by  Austria,  if  her  police  authorities  couki  have 
nppreciated  the  fun  of  the  thing,  as  wholesomely  calcu- 
Jated  to  throw  ridicule  on  the  hated  institution.  He  was 
utterly  unassuming  and  good-natured  in  his  manner,  and 
when  seen  in  his  ordinary  black  habiliments  looked  more 
like  a  well-to-do  Jewish  trader  than  anything  else. 

As  for  the  social  aspects  of  these  scientific  congresses, 
they  were  becoming  every  year  more  festive,  and,  at  all 
events  to  the  ignoramus  outsiders  who  joined  them,  more 
pleasant.  My  good  cousin  and  old  friend,  then  Colonel, 
now  General,  Sir  Charles  Trollope,  was  at  Venice  that  au- 
tumn. I  said,  on  meeting  him,  "  Now  the  first  thing  is  to 
make  you  a  member."  "  Me,  a  member  of  a  scientific 
congress  !"  said  he.  "  God  bless  you,  I  am  as  ignorant 
as  a  babe  of  all  possible  'epteras  and  'opteras,  and  'statics 
and  'maties."  "  Oh,  nonsense  !  we  are  all  men  of  sci- 
ence here.  Come  along  !" — i.  e.,  to  the  ducal  palace  to 
be  inscribed.  "  But  what  do  you  mean  to  tell  them  I 
am?"  he  asked.  "Well,  let's  see!  You  must  have 
superintended  a  course  of  instruction  in  the  goose-step 
in  your  day?"  "Rather  so,"  said  he.  "Very  well, 
then.  You  are  Instructor  in  Military  Exercises  in  her  B. 
M.  Forces.  You  are  all  right.  Come  along  !"  And  if 
I  had  said  that  he  was  Trumpeter  Major  of  the  GOOtli  Regi- 
ment in  the  Bi'itish  Army  it  would  doubtless  have  been 
equally  all  right.  So  said,  so  done.  And  I  see  his  bewil- 
dered look  now,  as  the  four  huge  volumes,  about  a  load 
for  a  porter,  to  which  he  had  become  entitled,  together 
with  medals  and  documents  of  many  kinds,  were  put  into 
his  amis. 

Ah,  those  were  pleasant  days  !  And  while  Italy,  under 
the  wing  of  science,  was  plotting  her  independence,  I  was 
busy  in  forging  the  chains  of  that  dependence  which  was 
to  be  a  more  unmixed  source  of  happiness  to  me  than  the 
independence  which  Italy  was  compassing  has  yet  proved 
to  lier. 

Those  chains,  however,  as  regarded  at  all  events  the 
outward  and  visiVjle  signs  of  them,  had  not  got  forged  yet. 


MY   FIRST   MARRIAGE.  387 

I  certainly  ha  J  not  "  proposed  "  to  Theodosia.  In  fact,  to 
the  very  best  of  my  recollection,  I  never  did  "  propose  " 
to  her — or  "pop,"  as  the  hideous  phrase  is — any  decisive 
question  at  all.  AVe  seem,  to  my  recollection,  to  have 
come  gradually,  insensibly,  and  mutually  to  consider  it  a 
matter  of  course  that  what  we  wanted  was  to  be  married, 
and  that  the  only  matter  which  needed  any  words  or  con- 
sideration was  the  question  how  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  our  wishes  were  to  be  overcome. 

In  the  autumn  of  1847  my  mother  and  I  went  to  pass 
the  winter  in  Rome.  My  sister  Cecilia's  health  had  been 
failiufr;  and  it  beijan  to  be  feared  that  there  was  reason 
to  suspect  the  approach  of  the  malady  which  had  already 
destroved  mv  brother  Henry  and  my  vounarer  sister  Emily. 
It  was  decided,  therefore,  that  she  should  pass  the  winter 
in  Rome.  Iler  husband's  avocations  made  it  impossible 
for  him  to  accompany  her  thither,  and  my  mother  there- 
fore took  an  apartment  there  to  receive  her.  It  was  in  a 
email  palazzo  in  that  part  of  the  Via  delle  Quattro  Fon- 
tane  which  is  now  situated  between  the  Via  Xazionale 
and  the  Church  of  Santa  ]Maria  Maggiore,  to  the  left  of 
one  eroinsT  towards  the  latter.  There  was  no  Via  Nazio- 
nale  then,  and  the  buildings  which  now  make  the  Via  delle 
Quattro  Fontane  a  continuous  line  of  street  existed  only 
in  the  case  of  a  few  isolated  houses  and  convents.  It  was 
a  very  comfortable  apartment,  roomy,  sunny,  and  (juiet. 
The  Ijouse  exists  still,  though  somewhat  modernized  in 
outward  appearance,  and  is,  I  think,  the  second,  after  one 
going  towards  Santa  Maria  ^laggiore  has  crossed  the  new 
Via  XazionaU*. 

But  the  grand  question  was  whrllior  it  could  bu  brought 
about  that  Theodosia  (rarrow  should  be  permitted  to  be 
my  mother's  guest  during  that  winter.  A  hint  on  the 
matter  was  quite  sufficient  for  my  dear  niothrr,  although 
I  do  not  tliink  that  she  had  yet  any  idt-a  that  I  was  minded 
to  give  lier  a  daughter-in-law.  Tlu-odosia's  parents  had 
certainly  no  faintest  i<lea  that  anything  more  than  ordinary 
friendship  existeil  between  me  and  tluir  daughter,  or,  if 
they  had  liad  such,  she  would  certainly  have  never  been 
allowed  to  accept  my  mother's  invitation.     As  for  Theo- 


388  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

dosia  herself  and  her  willingness  to  come,  it  seems  to  me, 
as  I  look  back,  that  nothing  was  said  between  us  at  all, 
any  more  than  anything  was  said  about  making  her  my 
wife.  I  think  it  was  all  taken  for  granted,  sans  mot  dire, 
by  both  of  us.  But  there  w^as  one  person  who  knew  all 
about  it ;  knew  what  was  in  both  our  hearts,  and  was 
eagerly  anxious  that  the  desire  of  them  should  be  fulfilled. 
This  was  the  good  fairy,  Harriet  Fisher.  Without  the 
strenuous  exertion  of  her  influence  on  her  mother  and 
Mr.  Garrow  the  object  would  hardly  have  been  accom- 
plished. Of  course  the  plea  put  forward  was  the  great 
desirability  of  taking  advantage  of  such  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  Rome. 

My  sister,  whose  health,  alas  !  profi^ted  nothing  by  that 
visit  to  Rome,  and  could  haye  been  profited  by  no  yisit  to 
any  place  on  earth,  became  strongly  attached  to  Theo- 
dosia  ;  and  the  affection  which  grew  up  between  them  was 
the  more  to  the  honor  of  both  of  them,  in  that  they  Avere 
far  as  the  poles  asunder  in  opinions  and  habits  of  thought. 
My  sister  was  what  in  those  days  was  called  a  "  Puseyite." 
Her  opinions  were  formed  on  the  highest  High-Church 
model,  and  her  Church  opinions  made  the  greatest  part, 
and,  indeed,  nearly  the  Avhole  of  her  life.  Theodosia  had 
no  Church  opinions  at  all.  High  or  Low.  All  her  mind 
and  interests  were,  at  all  events  at  that  time,  turned  tow- 
ards poetry  and  art.  Subsequently  she  interested  herself 
keenly  in  political  and  social  questions,  but  had  hardly 
at  that  time  begun  to  do  so.  But  she  made  a  conquest  of 
my  sister. 

Indeed  it  would  have  been  yery  difficult  for  any  one  to 
live  in  the  same  house  with  her  without  loving  her.  She 
was  so  bright,  her  sympathies  »o  ready,  her  intelligence 
so  large  and  varied,  that  da}'  after  day  her  presence  and 
her  conversation  were  a  continual  delight;  and  she  was 
withal  diffident  of  herself,  gentle  and  unassuming  to  a 
fault.  My  mother  had  already  learned  to  love  her  truly 
as  a  daughter,  before  there  was  any  apparent  probability 
of  her  becoming  one. 

We  did  not  succeed  in  bearing  down  all  the  opposition 
that  in  the  name  of  ordinary  prudence  was  made  to  our 


MY    FIRST   MARRIAGE.  389 

marriage,  till  the  sprinc^  of  forty-eight.  We  were  finally 
married  on  the  3d  of  April  in  that  year,  in  the  British 
minister's  chapel  in  Florence,  in  tlie  quiet,  comfortable 
way  in  which  we  used  to  do  such  things  in  those  days. 

I  told  ray  good  friend  Mr.  Plunkett  (he  had  then  be- 
come the  English  representative  at  the  court  of  Tuscany) 
that  I  wanted. to  be  married  the  next  day.  "All  ris^ht," 
said  he  ;  "  will  ten  o'clock  do  ?"  "  Could  not  be  better." 
"  Very  good.  Tell  Robbins  [the  then  English  clergyman] 
I'll  be  sure  to  be  there."  So,  at  ten  the  next  mornins:  we 
looked  in  at  the  Palazzo  Ximcnes,  and  in  about  ten  min- 
utes the  business  was  done. 

Of  Mr.  Robbins,  who  was  as  kind  and  good  a  little  man 
as  could  be,  I  may  note,  since  I  have  been  led  to  speak  of 
him,  the  following  rather  singular  circumstance.  lie  was, 
as  I  have  been  told,  the  son  of  a  Devonshire  farmer,  and 
his  two  sisters  were  the  wives  of  two  of  the  principal 
Florentine  nobles,  one  having  married  the  Marchesc  In- 
ghirami  and  the  other  the  Marchesc  Bartolomei.  What 
circumstances  led  to  the  accomplishment  of  a  destiny  ap- 
parently so  strange  for  the  family  of  a  Devonshire  farmer 
I  never  heard.  The  clerjirvman  and  his  sisters  were  all 
much  my  seniors. 

After  the  expeditious  ceremony  we  all — about  half  a 
score  of  us — went  off  to  breakfast  at  the  house  of  Mr. 
Garrow  in  the  Piazza  di  Santa  Maria  Novella,  and  before 
noon  my  wife  and  I  were  off  on  a  ramble  among  the  Tus- 
can cities. 


CHAPTER   XXIX. 

ELIZABETH    BARRETT    BROWNING. 

My  very  old  friend,  Colonel  Grant — General  Grant  many 
years  before  he  died — used  to  say  that  if  he  wished,  with- 
out changing  his  place  himself,  to  see  the  greatest  possi- 
ble number  of  his  friends  and  acquaintances,  he  should 
stand  perpetually  at  the  foot  of  the  column  in  the  Place 
Vendi'ime.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  at  least  as  advan- 
tageous a  post  of  observation  for  the  purpose  would  be 
the  foot  of  Giotto's  tower  in  Florence  !  Who  in  these 
days  lives  and  dies  without  going  to  Florence ;  and 
who  goes  to  Florence  without  going  to  gaze  on  the 
most  perfectly  beautiful  tower  that  human  hands  ever 
raised? 

Let  me  tell  ((piite  parenthetically)  a  really  good  story 
of  that  matchless  building,  which  yet,  however,  will  hai'dly 
be  appreciated  at  its  full  value  by  those  who  haye  never 
seen  it.  AVhen  the  Austrian  troops  were  occupying  Flor- 
ence, one  of  the  white-coated  officers  had  planted  him- 
self in  the  piazza  in  front  of  the  tower,  and  was  gazing 
at  it  earnestly,  lost  in  admiration  of  its  perfect  beauty. 
"  Si  svita,  signore^''  said  a  little  street  urchin,  coming  up 
behind  him — "  It  unscreios,  sir  !"  As  much  as  to  say, 
"  Wouldn't  3^ou  like  just  to  take  it  off  bodily  and  carry 
it  away?"  But,  as  I  said,  to  apprehend  the  aptitude  of 
the  ganii7i*s  sneer,  one  must  have  one's  self  looked  on  the 
absolute  perfection  of  proportion  and  harmony  of  its  every 
part,  wliich  really  does  suggest  the  idea  that  the  whole 
might  be  lifted  bodily  in  one  piece  from  its  place  on  the 
soil.  Whether  the  Austrian  had  the  wit  to  answer,  "You 
are  blundering,  boy  ;  3'ou  are  taking  me  for  a  Frenchman," 
I  don't  know. 

But  I  was  saying,  when  the  mention  of  the  celebrated 
tower  led  me   into  telling,  before  I  forgot  it,  the  above 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWNING.  391 

Story,  that  Florence  was  of  all  the  cities  of  Europe  that 
in  which  one  might  be  likely  to  see  the  greatest  number 
of  old,  and  make  the  greatest  number  of  new,  acquaint- 
ances. I  lived  there  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  the 
number  of  persons,  chiefly  English,  American,  and  Ital- 
ian, whom  I  knew  during  that  period  is  astonishing.  The 
number  of  them  was  of  course  all  the  greater  from  the 
fact  that  the  society,  at  least  so  far  as  English  and  Ameri- 
cans were  concerned,  was  to  a  very  great  degree  a  float- 
ing one.  They  come  back  to  my  memory,  when  I  think 
of  those  times,  like  a  long  procession  of  ghosts.  Most 
of  them,  I  suppose,  are  ghosts  by  this  time.  They  pass 
away  out  of  one's  ken,  and  are  lost ! 

Some,  thank  Heaven,  are  not  lost ;  and  some,  though  lost, 
will  never  pass  out  of  ken.  If  I  were  writing  only  for 
myself  I  should  like  to  send  my  memory  roving  among 
all  that  crowd  of  phantoms,  catch  them  one  after  another 
as  they  dodge  about,  half  eluding  one  when  just  on  the 
point  of  recovering  them,  and,  fixing  them  in  memory's 
camera,  photograj)!!  them  one  after  another.  But  I  cannot 
hope  that  such  a  gallery  would  be  as  interesting  to  the 
reader  as  it  certainly  would  to  me.  And  I  must  content 
myself  with  recording  my  recollections  of  those  among 
them  in  whom  the  world  may  be  sujiposcd  to  take  an 
interest, 

Theodnsia  Garrow,  when  living  with  hrr  parents  at  "  The 
Bratldons,"  at  Torcpiay,  had  known  Elizalieth  Barrett. 
The  latter  was  very  much  of  an  invalid  at  the  time  ;  so 
much  po,  as  I  think  I  have  gathered  from  my  wife's  talk 
about  those  times,  as  to  have  jtreventcd  her  from  being  a 
visitor  to  "The  Bniddons."  liut  Theodosia  was,  I  lake 
it,  to  be  very  frequently  found  by  the  side  of  the  sofa  to 
•which  her  friend  was  more  or  less  confincfl.  I  fancy  that 
]Mr.  Kenyon,  who  was  an  oM  friend  aii<l  family  connec- 
tion of  Klizalx'tli  Barrett's  family,  and  was  also  intimatelv 
acr|uainicil  with  the  (iarrows  and  with  Thcodosia,  must 
have  been  the  first  means  of  bringing  the  girls  togetlnr. 
There  were  assuredly  r/'n/  few  young  women  in  England 
at  that  day  to  whom  Theodosia  Garrow  in  social  inter- 
course would  have  had  to  look  ii]<.  as  to  one  on  a  higher 


392  AVHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

intc'lloctual  level  than  her  own.  But  Elizabeth  Barrett 
was  one  of  them.  I  am  not  talking  of  acquirements.  Nor 
■was  my  wife  thinking  of  such  when  she  used  to  speak  of 
the  poetess  as  she  had  known  her  at  that  time.  I  am  talk- 
ing, as  my  wife  used  to  talk,  of  pure  native  intellectual 
]iower.  And  I  consider  it  to  have  been  no  small  indica- 
tion of  the  capacity  of  my  wife's  intelligence,  that  she  so 
clearly  and  appreciatingly  recognized  and  measured  the 
distance  between  her  friend's  intellect  and  her  own.  But 
this  appreciation  on  the  one  side  was  in  no  wise  incom- 
patible with  a  large  and  generous  amount  of  admiration 
on  the  other.  And  many  a  talk  in  long  subsequent  years 
left  with  me  the  impression  of  the  high  estimation  which 
the  gifted  poetess  had  formed  of  the  value  of  her  highly, 
but  not  so  exceptionally,  gifted  admirer. 

Of  course  this  old  friendship  ])aved  the  way  for  a  new 
one  when  the  Brownings  came  to  live  in  Florence.  I  flat- 
ter myself  that  that  would  in  any  case  have  found  some 
raison  cVetre.  But  the  pleasure  of  the  two  girls — girls  no 
more  in  any  sense — in  meeting  again  quickened  the  growth 
of  an  intimacy  which  might  otherwise  have  been  slower 
in  ripening. 

To  say  that  amid  all  that  frivolous,  gay,  giddy,  and,  it 
must  be  owned,  for  the  most  part  very  unintellectual  so- 
ciety (in  the  pleasures  and  pursuits  of  which,  to  speak 
honestly,  I  took,  well  pleased,  my  full  share),  my  visits 
to  Casa  Guidi  were  valued  by  me  as  choice  morsels  of  my 
existence,  is  to  say  not  half  enough.  I  was  conscious 
even  then  of  coming  away  from  those  visits  a  better  man, 
with  higher  views  and  aims.  And  pray,  reader,  under- 
stand that  any  such  effect  was  not  produced  by  any  talk 
or  look  or  word  of  the  nature  of  ])reaching,  or  anything 
approaching  to  it,  but  simply  by  the  perception  and  ap- 
preciation of  what  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  was  ;  of 
the  immaculate  purity  of  every  thought  that  passed  through 
her  pellucid  mind,  and  the  indefeasible  nobility  of  her 
every  idea,  sentiment,  and  opinion.  I  hope  my  reader  is 
not  so  much  the  slave  of  conventional  phraseology  as  to 
imagine  that  I  use  the  Avord  "purity"  in  the  above  sen- 
tence in  its  restricted,  and  one  may  say  technical,  sense. 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWXIXG.  393 

I  mean  the  purity  of  the  upper  spiritual  atmosphere  in 
which  she  habitually  dwelt;  the  absolute  disseverance  of 
her  moral  as  Avell  as  her  intellectual  nature  from  all  those 
lower  thoughts  as  well  as  lower  passions  which  smirch  the 
human  soul.  In  mind  and  heart  she  was  icMte — stainless. 
That  is  what  I  mean  by  purity. 

Her  most  intimate  friend  at  Florence  was  a  Miss  Isabella 
Blagden,  who  lived  for  many  years  at  Bellosguardo,  in  a 
villa  commanding  a  lovely  view  over  Florence  and  the 
valley  of  the  Arno  from  the  southern  side,  looking  across 
it  therefore  to  Fiesole  and  its  villa-and-cypress-covcred 
slopes.  Whether  the  close  friendship  between  Mrs. 
Browning  and  Isa  Blagden  (we  all  called  her  Isa  always) 
was  first  formed  in  Florence,  or  had  its  commencement 
at  an  earlier  date,  I  do  not  know.  But  Isa  was  also  the 
intimate  and  very  specially  highly-valued  friend  of  my 
wife  and  myself.  And  this  also  contributed  to  our  com- 
mon friendship.  Isa  was  (yes,  as  usual,  "  was,"  alas,  though 
she  was  very  much  my  junior)  a  very  bright,  very  warm- 
hearted, very  clever  little  woman,  who  knew  everybody, 
and  was,  I  think,  more  universally  beloved  than  any  other 
imlividiial  among  us.  A  little  volume  of  her  poems  was 
published  after  her  untimely  death.  Tliey  are  not  such 
as  could  take  by  storm  the  careless  ears  of  the  world, 
which  knows  nothing  alxnit  her,  and  must,  I  suppose,  be 
a<lmitted  to  be  marked  by  that  mediocrity  which  neither 
gods  nor  men  can  tolerate.  But  it  is  imjiossible  to  read 
the  little  volume  without  perceiving  hnw  choice  a  spirit 
the  authoress  must  have  been,  and  understanding  hoAV  it 
came  to  j»ass  that  she  was  especially  lutnored  by  the  close 
and  warm  attachment  of  Mrs.  Browning.  I  have  scores 
of  letters  signe<l  "  Isa,"  or  rather  Sibylline  leaves  scrawled 
in  the  vilest  liandwriting  on  all  sorts  of  abnormal  frag- 
ments of  jiaper,  and  dosjiatchccl  in  headlong  haste,  gener- 
ally concerning  some  little  jirojected  festivity  at  Bellos- 
guardo, and  advising  me  of  the  expeetcfl  presence  of  some 
stranger  whom  she  thought  I  should  like  to  meet.  Very 
many  of  such  of  these  fragmentary  scribblings  as  were 
written  before  the  Brownings  left  Florence  contain  some 
word  or  refercnee  to  her  beloved  "Ha,"  f(»r  such  was  the 
IT* 


394  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

pet  name  used  between  them,  witli  wliat  meaning  or  origin 
I  know  not. 

Dear  Isa's  death  was  to  me  an  especially  sad  one,  be- 
cause I  thouglit,  and  think,  that  she  need  not  have  died. 
She  lived  alone  with  a  couple  of  old  servants,  and  though 
she  was  rich  in  troops  of  friends,  and  tliere  were  one  or 
two  near  her  during  tlie  day  or  two  of  her  illness,  thev 
did  not  seem  to  have  managed  matters  wisely.  Our  Isa 
was  extremely  obstinate  about  calling  in  medical  advice. 
It  could  not  be  done  at  a  moment's  notice,  for  a  message 
had  to  be  sent  and  a  doctor  to  come  from  Florence.  And 
this  was  not  done  till  the  second  day  of  her  illness.  And 
I  liad  good  reason  for  thinking  that,  had  she  been  prop- 
erly attended  to  on  the  first  day,  her  life  might  have  been 
saved.  She  would  not  let  her  friends  send  for  the  doc- 
tor, and  the  friends  were  unable  to  make  her  do  so.  Un- 
happily, I  was  absent  for  a  few  days  at  Siena,  and  returned 
to  be  met  by  the  intelligence  that  she  was  dead.  It  seemed 
the  more  sad  in  that  I  knew  that  if  I  had  been  there  I 
could  have  made  her  call  a  doctor  before  it  was  too  late. 
Browning  could  also  have  done  so  ;  but  it  was  after  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Browning  and  his  departure  from  Florence. 

How  great  her  sorrow  was  for  the  death  of  her  friend, 
Browning  knew,  doubtless,  but  nobody  else,  I  think,  in 
the  world  save  myself. 

I  have  now  before  me  one  of  her  little  scraps  of  letters, 
in  which  she  encloses  one  from  ]\Irs.  Browning  Avhich  is 
of  the  highest  interest.  The  history  and  genesis  of  it  is 
as  follows  :  Shortly  after  the  publication  of  the  well-known 
and  exquisite  little  poem  on  the  god  Pan  in  the  Cornhill 
Mofiazine,  my  brother  Anthony  wrote  me  a  letter  ven- 
turing to  criticise  it,  in  which  he  says:  "The  lines  are 
very  beautiful,  and  the  working  out  of  the  idea  is  deli- 
cious. But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  she  is  illustrating 
an  allegory  by  a  thought,  rather  than  a  thought  by  an 
allegory.  The  idea  of  the  god  destroying  the  reed  in 
making  the  instrument  has,  I  imagine,  given  her  occasion 
to  declare  that  in  the  sublimation  of  the  poet  the  man  is 
lost  for  the  ordinary  ])urpose3  of  man's  life.  It  has  been 
thus  instead  of  being  the  reverse  ;  and  I  can  hardly  believe 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWNING.  395 

that  she  herself  believes  in  the  doctrine  which  her  fancy 
has  led  her  to  illusti'ate.  A  man  that  can  be  a  poet  is  so 
much  the  more  a  man  in  becoming  such,  and  is  the  more 
fitted  for  a  man's  best  work.  Nothing  is  destroyed,  and 
in  preparing  the  instrument  for  the  touch  of  the  musician 
the  gods  do  nothing  for  which  they  need  weep.  The  idea, 
however,  is  beautiful,  and  it  is  beautifully  worked." 

Then  follows  some  verbal  criticism  which  need  not  be 
transcribed.  Going  on  to  the  seventh  stanza  he  says,  "  In 
the  third  line  of  it,  she  loses  her  antithesis.  She  must 
spoil  her  man,  as  well  as  make  a  poet  out  of  him — spoil 
him  as  the  reed  is  spoiled.  Should  we  not  read  the  lines 
thus: 

"  '  Yet  one  half  beast  is  the  great  god  Pan 

Or  lie  would  not  have  laughed  by  the  river. 

Making  a  poet  he  mars  a  man ; 

The  true  gods  sigh,'  etc.  ?" 

In  justice  to  my  brother's  memory  I  must  say  that  this 
was  not  written  to  me  with  any  such  presumptuous  idea 
as  that  of  offering  his  criticism  to  the  poetess.  But  I 
showed  the  letter  to  Isa  Blagden,  and  at  her  request  left 
it  with  her.  A  daj-  or  two  later  she  writes  to  me  :  "  Dear 
friend, — I  send  you  back  your  criticism  and  Mrs.  B.'s  re- 
joinder. She  made  me  show  it  to  her,  and  she  wishes  you 
to  see  her  answer."  ]\Iiss  Blagden's  words  would  seem 
to  imjily  that  she  thought  the  criticism  mine.  And  if  she 
did,  Mrs.  Browning  was  doubtless  led  to  suppose  so  too. 
Yet  I  think  this  could  hardly  have  been  the  case. 

Of  course  my  only  object  in  writing  all  this  here  is  to 
give  the  reader  the  great  treat  of  seeing  Mrs.  Browning's 
"rejoinder."     It  is  very  highly  interesting. 

"Dkaiikst  Isa,  —  Very  gentle  my  critic  is;  I  am  glad  I  got  him  out 
of  you.  But  tell  dear  Mr.  TroUope  he  is  wrong  nevertheless  [here  it 
certainly  seems  that  she  supposed  the  criticism  to  he  minej ;  and  that 
my  'thought'  was  really  and  decidedly  autcrior  [.sic]  to  my  'allegory.' 
Moreover,  it  is  my  thought  still.  I  meant  to  say  that  the  poetic  organiza- 
tion implies  certain  disadvantages ;  for  instance  an  exaggerated  general 
Busceplibilily,  .  .  .♦  which  may  be  shut  up,  kept  out  of  the  way  in  cvcry- 

•  These  dots  do  not  indicate  any  hiatus.  They  exi-^t  in  the  M.S.  as  liere 
given. 


396  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

day  life,  and  must  be  (or  the  man  is  'warrw/,'  indeed,  made  a  Rousseau  or 
a  Byron  of),  but  which  is  necessarily,  for  all  that,  cultivated  in  the  verv 
cultivation  of  art  itself.  There  is  an  inward  reflection  and  refraction  of 
the  heats  of  life.  .  .  .*  doubling  pains  and  pleasures,  doubling,  therefore, 
the  motives  (passions)  of  life.  I  have  said  something  of  this  in  A.  L. 
["Aurora  Leigh  "].  Also  there  is  a  passion  for  essential  truth  (as  appre- 
hended) and  a  necessity  for  speaking  it  out  at  all  risks,  inconvenient  to 
personal  peace.  Add  to  this  and  much  else  the  loss  of  the  sweet  uncon- 
scious cool  privacy  among  the  '  reeds'  .  .  .*  which  I  for  one  care  so  much 
for  —  the  loss  of  the  privilege  of  being  glad  or  sorry,  ill  or  well,  without  a 
'notice.'  That  may  have  its  glory  to  certain  minds.  But  most  people 
would  be  glad  to  'stir  their  tea  in  silence'  when  they  are  grave, and  even 
to  talk  nonsense  (much  too  frivolously)  when  they  are  merrv,  without  its 
running  the  round  of  the  newspapers  in  two  worlds,  perhaps.  You  know 
I  don't  invenl,  Isa.  In  fact,  I  am  sorely  tempted  to  send  Mr.  Trollope  a 
letter  I  had  this  morning,  as  an  illustnition  of  my  view,  and  a  reply  to  his 
criticism.  Only  this  letter,  among  many,  begins  with  too  many  fair  speeches. 
Still  it  seems  written  by  somebody  in  earnest  and  with  a  liking  for  me. 
Its  main  object  is  to  complain  of  the  cowardly  morality  in  Pan.  Then  a 
stroke  on  the  poems  before  Congress.  The  writer  has  heard  that  I  'had 
been  to  Paris,  -was  feted  by  the  emperor,  and  had  had  my  head  turned  by 
imperial  flatteries,'  in  consequence  of  which  I  had  taken  to  '  praise  and 
flatter  the  tyrant,  and  try  to  help  his  selfish  ambition.'  Well !  one  should 
laugh  and  be  wise.  But  somehow  one  doesn't  laugh.  A  letter  beginning, 
'  You  are  a  great  teacher  of  truth,'  and  ending,  '  You  are  a  dishonest 
wretch,'  makes  you  cold  someliow,  and  ill-disposed  towards  the  satisfactions 
of  literary  distinction.  Yes!  and  be  sure,  Isa,  that  the  'true  gods  sigh,' 
and  have  reason  to  sigh,  for  the  cost  and  pain  of  it ;  sigh  only  .  .  .  don'^t 
haggle  over  the  cost;  don't  grudge  a  crazia,  but  .  .  .  sigh,  sigh  .  .,. 
while  they  pay  honestly. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  there's  much  light  talking  and  congratulation,  ex- 
cellent returns  to  the  pocket  from  the  poem  in  the  Comhill ;  pleasant 
praise  from  dear  Mr.  Trollope  .  .  .  with  all  drawbacks :  a  good  opinion 
from  Isa  worth  its  gold — and  Pan  laughs. 

"  But  he  is  a  beast  up  to  the  waist ;  yes,  Mr.  Trollope,  a  beast.  He  is 
not  a  true  god. 

"  And  I  am  neither  god  nor  beast,  if  you  please — only  a  Ba." 

It  seems  that  she  certainly  imagined  me  to  be  the  critic  ; 
but  must  have  been  subsequently  undeceived.  I  will  not 
venture  to  say  a  word  on  the  question  of  the  marring  or 
making  of  a  man  which  results  from  the  creation  of  a 
poet ;  but  if  mv  brother  had  known  Mrs.  Browning  as 
•well  as  I  knew  her,  he  would  not  have  written  that  he 

♦  The.'e  dots  do  not  indicate  any  hiatus.  They  exist  in  the  MS.  as  here 
given. 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWXLXG.  397 

could  '•hardly  believe  that  she  herself  believes  in  the 
doctrine  that  her  fancy  has  led  her  to  illustrate."  At  all 
events,  the  divine  afflatus  had  not  so  marred  the  absolute- 
ly single-minded  truthfulness  of  the  woman  in  her  as  to 
make  it  possible  that  she  should,  for  the  sake  of  illustrat- 
ing, however  appositely,  any  fancy,  however  brilliant,  put 
forth  a  "doctrine"  as  believing  in  it  which  she  did  not 
believe.  It  mav  seem  that  this  is  a  foolish  making  of  a 
mountain  out  of  a  molehill  ;  but  she  would  not  have  felt 
it  to  be  so.  She  had  so  high  a  conception  of  the  poet's 
office  and  resi)onsibilities  that  nothing  would  have  in- 
duced her  to  play  at  believing,  for  literary  purposes,  any 
position,  or  fancy,  or  imagination  which  she  did  not  in 
her  heart  of  hearts  accept. 

There  was  one  subject  u]ion  Avhich  both  my  wife  and  T 
disagreed  in  opinion  with  ]Mrs.  Browning  ;  and  it  was  a 
subject  which  sat  very  near  her  heart,  and  was  much  oc- 
cupying all  minds  at  that  time — the  jdiases  of  Italy's 
struggle  for  independence,  and  especially  the  part  M'hich 
the  p]mperor  Napoleon  the  Third  was  taking  in  that 
struggle,  and  his  conduct  towards  Italy.  AVe  were  all 
equally  "  Italianissimi,"  as  the  phrase  went  then;  all 
equally  desirous  that  Italy  should  accomplish  the  union 
of  her  di.yecta  membra,  throw  off  the  yoke  of  the  bad 
governments  which  had  oji^tressed  hor,  make  herself  a  na- 
tion, and  do  well  as  such.  Jiut  we  differed  widely  as  to  the 
ultimate  utility,  the  probable  results,  and,  above  all,  as  to 
the  motives  of  the  emperor's  conduct.  Mrs.  Browning 
believed  in  him  and  trusted  liim.  We  did  neither.  Hence 
the  following  interesting  and  curious  letter,  written  to 
my  wife  at  Florence  by  Mrs.  Browning,  who  was  passing 
the  summer  at  Siena,  ^frs.  Browning  felt  very  warmly 
uj)on  this  subject — so,  indeed,  did  my  wife,  differing  from 
liiT  toio  rrelo  upon  it.  But  the  difference  not  only  never 
<:iused  the  sliglitest  suspension  of  cordial  fcclinrj  between 
them,  but  never  eauseil  eitlu-r  of  them  to  doubt  for  a  mo- 
ment that  tl»e  otli«r  was  with  equal  sincerity  and  iMjual 
ardor  anxictus  f<>r  the  same  end.  The  letter  was  written, 
as  only  the  postmark  shows,  on  September  20,  1859,  and 
was  as  follows  ; 


398  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

"  My  dkar  Mrs.  Trollope, — I  feci  doubly  grateful  to  you  ...  for  tlie 
music  (one  of  the  proof.s  of  your  niultiforni  faculty)  and  for  your  kind  and 
welcome  letter,  which  I  have  delayed  to  thank  you  for.  My  body  lags  so 
behind  my  soul  always,  and  especially  of  late,  that  you  must  consider  my 
disadvantages  in  whatever  fault  is  committed  by  me,  trying  to  forgive  it. 

"  Certainly  we  differ  in  our  estimate  of  the  Italian  situation,  while  loving 
and  desiring  for  Italy  up  to  the  same  height  and  with  the  same  heart. 

"For  me  I  persist  in  looking  to  facts  rather  than  to  words  official  or  un- 
official, and  in  repeating  that,  '  whereas  we  were  bound,  now  we  are  free.' 

" '  I  think,  therefore  I  am.'  Co(/ito,  ergo  sum,  was,  you  know,  an  old 
formula.  Italy  tliiidvs  (aloud)  at  Florence  and  Bologna ;  therefore  she  is. 
And  how  did  that  happen  ?  Could  it  have  happened  last  year,  with  the 
Austrians  at  Bologna,  and  ready  (at  a  sign)  to  precipitate  themselves  into 
Tuscany?  Could  it  have  happened  previous  to  the  French  intervention? 
And  could  it  happen  now  if  France  used  the  power  she  has  in  Italy  against 
Italy  ?  "Why  is  it  that  the  Times  newspaper,  which  declared  .  .  .  first 
that  the  elections  were  to  be  prevented  by  France,  and  next  that  they  were 
to  be  tampered  with  ...  is  not  justified  before  our  eyes?  I  appeal  to 
your  sober  judgment  ...  if,  indeed,  the  Emperor  Napoleon  desires  the  res- 
toraxion  of  the  dukes!  !  Is  he  not  all  the  more  admirable  for  being  loyal 
and  holding  his  hand  off  while  he  has  fifty  thousand  men  ready  to  '  protect ' 
us  all  and  prevent  the  exercise  of  the  people's  sovereignty  ?  And  he  a 
despot  (so  called)  and  accustomed  to  carry  out  his  desires.  Instead  of 
which  Tuscans  and  Romagnoli,  Parma  and  Modena,  have  had  every  oppor- 
tunity allowed  them  to  combine,  carry  their  elections,  and  express  their 
full  minds  in  assemblies,  till  the  case  becomes  so  complicated  and  strength- 
ened that  her  enemies  for  the  most  part  despair. 

"The  qualities  shown  by  the  Italians — tiie  calm,  the  dignity,  the  intelli- 
gence, the  constancy  ...  I  am  as  far  from  not  understanding  the  weight 
of  these  virtues  as  from  not  admiring  them.  But  the  opportuniti/  for  ex- 
ercising them  comes  from  the  Emperor  Xapoleon,  and  it  is  good  and  just 
for  us  all  to  remember  this  while  we  admire  the  most. 

"So  at  least  I  think  ;  and  the  Italian  official  bodies  have  always  admitted 
it,  though  individnals  seem  to  me  to  be  too  much  influenced  by  the  suspi- 
cions and  calumnies  thrown  out  by  foreign  journals — English,  Piussian, 
Austrian,  and  others — which  traduce  the  emperor's  motives  in  diplomacy, 
a?  they  traduced  them  in  the  war.  A  prejudice  in  the  eye  is  as  fatal  to 
sight  as  mote  and  beam  together.  And  there  are  things  abroad  won-e  than 
any  prejudices — yes,  worse  ! 

"  It  is  a  fact  that  the  emperor  used  his  influence  with  England  to  get  the 
Tuscan  vote  accepted  by  the  English  government.  Whatever  wickedness 
he  meant  by  that  the  gods  know  ;  and  English  statesmen  suspect  .  .  .  (or 
suspected  a  very  short  time  ago);  but  the  deed  itself  is  not  wicked,  and 
you  and  I  shall  not  be  severe  on  it  whatever  bad  motive  may  be  imput- 
able. 

"So  much  more  I  could  write  .  .  .  about  Villafranca,  but  I  won't.  The 
emperor,  great  man  as  he  is,  could  not  precisely  anticipate  the  high  quali- 
ties given   proof  of  in  the  late  development  of  Italian  nationality.      lie 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWNING.  399 

made  the  best  terms  he  could,  having  had  his  liaiui  forced.  In  consequence 
of  this  treaty  he  has  carried  out  his  engagement  to  Austria  in  certain  offi- 
cial forms,  knowing  well  that  the  free  will  and  choice  of  the  Italians  are 
hindered  by  none  of  them  ;  and  knowing  besides  that  every  apparent  cold- 
ness and  reserve  of  his  towards  the  peninsula  removes  a  jealousy  from 
England,  and  instigates  her  to  a  more  liberal  and  human  bearing  than 
formerly. 

"  Forgive  me  for  all  these  words.  I  am  much  better,  but  still  not  as 
strong  as  I  was  before  my  attack ;  only  getting  strength,  I  hope. 

"Miss  Blagden  and  Miss  Field  are  staying  still  with  us,  and  are  gone  to 
Siena  today  to  see  certain  pictures  (which  has  helped  to  expose  you  to  this 
attack).  We  talk  of  returning  to  Florence  by  the  first  of  October,  or  soon 
after,  in  spite  of  the  revival  of  fine  weather.  Mr.  Landor  is  surprisingly 
improved  by  the  good  air  here  and  the  repose  of  mind;  walks  two  miles, 
and  writes  alcaics  and  pentameters  on  most  days  ...  on  his  domestic 
circumstances,  and  ...  I  am  sorry  to  say  .  .  .  Louis  Napoleon.  But  I 
tell  him  that  I  mean  him  to  write  an  ode  on  my  side  of  the  question  be- 
fore we  have  done. 

"I  honor  you  and  your  husband  for  the  good  work  you  have  both  done 
on  behalf  of  this  great  cause.  But  his  book*  we  only  know  yet  by  the 
extracts  in  the  Athenxeutn,  which  brings  us  your  excellent  articles.  May  I 
not  thank  you  for  them  ?  And  when  does  Mr.  Trollope  come  back  ? 
[from  a  flying  visit  to  England].  We  hope  not  to  miss  him  out  of  Flor- 
ence long. 

"  Peni's  love  to  Bice.f  He  has  been  very  happy  here,  galloping  through 
the  lanes  on  a  j)ony  the  color  of  his  curls.  Then  he  helps  to  work  in  the 
vineyards  and  to  keep  the  sheep,  having  made  close  friends  with  the  con- 
tadini,  to  wliom  he  reads  and  explains  Dall'  Ongaro's  poems  with  great  ap- 
plause. By  the  way,  the  poet  paid  us  a  visit  lately,  and  we  liked  him 
much. 

"And  let  roe  tell  Bices  mother  another  story  of  Penini.  He  keeps  a 
journal,  be  it  whispered  ;  I  ventured  to  peep  through  the  leaves  the  other 
morning,  and  came  to  the  following  notice  :  •'  This  is  the  happiest  day  of 
my  hole  {sic)  life,  because  dearest  Vittoria  Emanueic  is  really  noslro  re/' 

"'J'here's  a  true  Italian  for  you  !     But  his  weak  point  is  spelling. 

"  Believe  me,  with  my  husband's  regards,  ever  truly  and  afTcctionately 
yours,  Elizabktii  Barrktt  Browning." 

It  may  pos.sildy  enter  into  tlic  jiiiiul  of  soino  one  of 
these  who  never  enjoyed  the  jirivilegc  of  knowing  I\Irs. 
Hrowiiing  tl»e  woniiin  to  couple  together  tlie  .stujiidly- 
caluninioiis  insinuations  to  which  slie  refers  in  the  iirst 
h'tter  I  have  given  with  the  a<ln)iration  slie  exjiresses  for 
the  third  XapoU-on  in  the  8ccon<l  h'tter.  I  dilTi-rcd  t'lum 
her  wliolly  in  her  estimate  of  the  man  an<l  in  her  views  of 

•  "Tuscany  in  1819  and  1869."  f  Browning's  boy  and  my  girl, 


400  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

bis  policy  with  rcG;ard  to  Italy.  And  many  an  argument 
have  I  had  Avith  her  on  the  subject.  And  my  opinions 
respecting  it  were  all  the  more  distasteful  to  her  because 
they  concerned  the  character  of  the  man  himself  as  well 
as  his  policy  as  a  ruler.  And  those  talks  and  arguments 
have  left  me  probably  the  only  man  alive,  save  one,  who 
knows  with  sucli  certainty  as  I  know  it,  and  can  assert  as 
I  can,  the  absolute  absurdity  and  impossibility  of  the  idea 
that  she,  being  what  she  Avas,  could  have  been  bribed  by 
any  amount  of  imperial  or  other  flattery,  not  only  to  pro- 
fess opinions  which  she  did  not  veritably  hold — this  touch- 
es her  moral  nature,  perhaps  the  most  pellucidly  truthful 
of  any  I  ever  knew — but  to  hold  opinions  which  she  would 
not  have  otherwise  held.  This  touches  her  intellectual 
nature,  which  was  as  incapable  of  being  mystified  or  mod- 
ified by  any  suggestion  of  vanity,  self-love,  or  gratified 
pride  as  the  most  judicial-mimled  judge  who  ever  sat  on 
the  bench.  Her  intellectual  vicAV  on  the  matter  icas,  I 
thought,  mystified  and  modified  by  the  intensity  of  her 
love  for  the  Italian  cause  and  of  her  hatred  for  the  evils 
from  which  she  was  Avatching  the  Italians  struggling  to 
liberate  themselves. 

I  heard,  probably  from  herself,  of  Avhispered  calumnies, 
such  as  those  she  refers  to  in  the  first  of  the  two  letters 
given.  She  despised  them  then,  as  those  who  loved  and 
valued  her  did,  though  the  sensitive,  Avomanly  gentleness 
of  her  nature  made  it  a  pain  to  her  that  any  felloAA'-creat- 
nre,  however  ignorant  and  far  aAvay  from  her,  should  so 
think  of  her.  And  my  disgust  at  a  secret  attempt  to  stab 
has  impelled  me  to  say  Avhat  I  Jcnoio  on  the  subject.  But 
I  really  think  that  not  only  those  Avho  knew  her  as  she 
lived  in  the  flesh,  but  the  tens  of  thousands  who  know  her 
as  she  lives  in  her  Avritten  Avords,  cannot  but  feel  my  vin- 
dication superfluous. 

The  above  long  and  specially  interesting  letter  is  Avrit- 
ten  in  very  small  characters  on  ten  pages  of  extremely 
small  duodecimo  note-paper,  as  is  also  the  other  letter  by 
the  same  Avriter  given  above.  Mrs.  Browning's  hand- 
writing shoAVS,  ever  and  anon,  an  odd  tendency  to  form 
each  letter  of  a  word  separately — a  circumstance  Avhich  I 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWXIXG.  40 1 

mention  for  the  sake  of  remarking  that  old  Huntingford, 
the  Bishop  of  Hereford,  in  my  young  days,  between  whom 
and  Mrs.  Browning  there  was  one  thing  in  common,  name- 
ly, a  love  for  and  familiarity  with  Greek  studies,  used  to 
write  in  the  same  manner. 

The  Dall'  Ongaro  here  spoken  of  was  an  old  friend  of 
ours — of  my  wife's,  if  I  remember  right — before  our  mar- 
riage. He  was  a  Venetian,  or,  rather,  to  speak  accurately, 
I  believe,  a  Dalmatian  by  birth,  but  all  his  culture  and 
sympathies  were  Venetian.  He  had  in  his  early  youth 
been  destined  for  the  priesthood,  but,  like  many  another, 
had  been  driven  by  the  feelings  and  sympathies  engen- 
dered by  Italy's  political  struggles  to  abandon  the  tonsure 
for  the  sake  of  joining  the  "patriot"  cause.  His  muse 
was  of  the  drawing-room  school  and  calibre.  But  he 
wrote  very  many  charming  little  poems  breathing  the 
warmest  aspirations  of  the  somewhat  extreme  gcmche  of 
that  day,  especially  some  stornelli  after  the  Tuscan  fash- 
ion, which  met  with  a  very  wide  and  warm  acceptance. 
I  remember  one  extremely  happy,  the  refrain  of  which 
still  runs  in  my  head.  It  is  written  on  the  newly  adopted 
Italian  tricolor  flag.  After  characterizing  each  color  sep- 
arately in  a  couplet,  he  ends  : 

"E  il  rosso,  il  bianco,  e  il  verdc, 
E  uu  terno  che  si  giuoca,  e  iion  si  peide." 

The  phrase  is  borrowed  from  the  language  of  the  lot- 
tery. "And  the  red,  and  the  white,  and  the  green,  are  a 
threefold  combination  "  [I  am  obliged  to  be  horribly  pro- 
saic in  order  to  make  the  allusion  intelligible  to  non-Ital- 
ian earsj  "on  which  wi;  may  play  and  be  sure  not  to 
lose !" 

I  am  tempted  to  give  here  another  of  ]\Irs.  Browning's 
letters  to  njy  first  wife,  ])arlly  by  the  persuasion  that  any 
letter  of  hers  must  bo  a  matter  of  interest  to  a  very  large 
j)ortion  of  English  readers,  and  partly  for  the  sake  of  the 
generously  aj>preciativc  criticism  of  one  of  my  brother's 
books,  whifh  I  also  always  considered  to  be  one  of  his  best. 
I  must  add  that  Mrs.  Browning's  (»ne  bit  of  censure  coin- 
cides as  perfectly  with  my  own  judgment.     The  letter,  as 


402  WHAT   I   KEMEMBER. 

usual,  is  dateless,  but  must  have  been  written  very  shortly 
after  the  publication  of  my  brother's  novel  called  "The 
Three  Clerks." 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Tkollope, — I  return  'The  Three  Clerks'  with  our  true 
thanks  and  appreciation.  We  both  quite  agree  with  you  in  considering  it 
the  best  of  the  tliree  clever  novels  before  the  public.  My  husband,  who 
can  seldom  get  a  novel  to  hold  him,  has  been  held  by  all  three,  and  by 
this  the  strongest.  Also,  it  has  qualities  which  the  others  gave  no  sign 
of.  P"or  instance,  I  was  wrung  to  tears  by  the  third  volume.  What  a 
thoroughly  mari's  book  it  is  !  I  much  admire  it,  only  wishing  away,  with 
a  vehemence  which  proves  the  veracity  of  my  general  admiration,  the  con- 
tributions to  the  'Daily  Delight' — may  I  dare  to  say  it? 

"  I  do  hope  you  arc  better.  For  myself,  I  have  not  suffered  more  than 
was  absolutely  necessary  in  the  late  unusual  weather. 

"I  heard  with  concern  that  Mrs.  Trollope  [my  mother]  has  been  less 
well  than  usual.     But  who  can  wonder,  with  such  cold  V 

"Most  truly  yours,  Elizabetu  Barrett  Browning. 

"CasaGcidi,  Wednesday.''^ 

Here  is,  also,  one  other  little  memorial,  written,  not  by 
"Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,"  but  by  "Elizabeth  Bar- 
rett." It  is  interesting  on  more  than  one  account.  It  bears 
no  date  save  "  Beacon  Terrace  [Torquay],  Thursday." 
But  it  evidently  n\arks  the  beginning  of  acquaintanceship 
between  the  two  exceptionally,  though  not  equally,  gift- 
ed girls,  Elizabeth  Barrett  and  Theodosia  Garrow.  It  is 
written  on  a  sheet  of  the  very  small  duodecimo  note-paper 
Avhich  she  was  wont  to  use  many  years  subsequently,  but 
in  far  more  delicate  and  elegant  characters  than  she  used 
when  much  pen-work  had  produced  its  usual  deteriorating 
effect  on  her  caligraphy. 

"I  cannot  return  the  'Book  of  Beauty'  [Lady  Blessington's  annual] 
to  Miss  Garrow  without  thanking  her  for  allowing  me  to  read  in  it  sooner 
than  I  should  otherwise  have  done  those  contributions  of  her  own  which 
help  to  justify  its  title,  and  which  are  indeed  sweet  and  touching  verses. 

"It  is  among  the  vexations  brought  upon  me  by  my  illness  that  I  still 
remain  personally  unacquainted  with  Miss  Garrow,  though  seeming  to  my- 
self to  know  her  through  those  who  actually  do  so.  And  I  should  venture 
to  hope  tlwit  it  might  be  a  vexation  the  fii'st  to  leave  me,  if  a  visit  to  an 
invalid  condemned  to  the  peine  forte  ct  dure  of  being  very  silent,  notwith- 
standing her  womanhood,  were  a  less  gloomy  thing.  At  any  rate,  I  am 
encouraged  to  thank  Miss  Fisher  and  Miss  Garrow  for  their  visits  of  re- 
peated inquiry,  and  their  other  very  kind  attentions,  by  tliese  written 
words  rather  than  bv  a  message.     Yor  I  am  sure  that  wherever  kindness 


ELIZABETH   BARRETT   BROWNING.  403 

can  come  thankfulness  may,  and  that  whatever  intrusion  my  nute  can  be 
guilty  of,  it  is  excusable  by  the  fact  of  my  being  Miss  Garrow's 

"  Sincerely  obliged,  E.  Barrett." 

Could  anything  be  more  cliavmingly  girlish  or  more 
prettily  worded?  The  diminutive  little  note  seems  to 
have  been  preserved,  an  almost  solitary  survival  of  the 
memorials  of  the  days  to  which  it  belongs.  It  must  doubt- 
less have  been  followed  by  sundry  others,  but  was,  I  sup- 
pose, specially  treasured  as  having  been  the  first  step  tow- 
ards a  friendship  which  was  already  highly  valued. 

Of  course,  in  the  recollections  of  an  Englishman  living 
during  those  years  in  Florence,  Robert  Browning  must 
necessarily  stand  out  in  high  relief  and  in  the  foremost 
line.  But  very  obviously  this  is  neither  the  time  nor  tlie 
place,  nor  is  my  dose  of  presumption  sufficient,  for  any 
attempt  at  a  delineation  of  the  man.  To  speak  of  the 
poet,  since  I  write  for  Englishmen,  would  be  very  super- 
fluous. It  may  be  readily  imagined  that  the  "tag-rag  and 
bob-tail "  of  the  men  who  mainly  constituted  tliat  very 
pleasant,  but  not  very  intellectual  societ}',  were  not  likely 
to  be  such  as  Mr.  Browning  would  readily  make  intimates 
of.  And  I  think  I  see,  in  memory's  magic  glass,  that  the 
men  used  to  be  rather  afraid  of  him.  Not  that  I  ever 
saw  him  rough  or  uncourteous  with  the  most  exasperating 
fool  that  ever  rubbed  a  man's  nervous  system  the  wrong 
way,  but  there  was  a  quiet,  lurking  smile  which,  support- 
ed bv  verv  few  words,  used  to  seem  to  have  the  sincrular 
property  of  making  the  utterers  of  platitudes  and  the  mis- 
takers  of  fion-si't/uitiirs  for  sfquitnrs  uncomfortably  aware 
of  the  nature  of  their  words  within  a  very  few  minutes 
after  they  had  uttered  them.  I  niay  say,  however,  that  I 
believe  that,  in  any  dispute  on  any  sort  of  subject  between 
any  two  men  in  tlie  place,  if  it  had  been  jnoposed  to  sub- 
mit tlie  matter  iu  dispute  f<»r  adjuilicalidii  to  Mr.  Brown- 
ing, the  proposal  would  have  liecn  jiinijted  at  with  a  greater 
readiness  of  consensus  than  in  the  case  of  any  other  man 
there. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

REMINISCENCES    AT   FLORENCE. 

The  Italians,  I  believe,  were  "thinking"  at  a  consider- 
ably earlier  period  than  that  which,  in  the  second  letter, 
transcribed  in  the  preceding  chapter,  Mrs.  Browning  seems 
to  have  considered  as  the  beginning  of  their  "cogitating" 
existence,  and  thinking  on  the  subjects  to  which  she  is 
there  adverting.  They  were  "  thinking,"  perhaps,  less  in 
Tuscany  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  peninsula,  for  they 
were  eating  more  and  better  there.  They  were  very  lightly 
taxed.  The  mezzeria  system  of  agriculture,  which,  if  not 
absolutely  the  same,  is  extremely  similar  to  that  which  is 
known  as  "  conacre,"  rendered  the  lot  of  the  peasant  pop- 
ulation very  far  better  and  more  prosperous  than  that  of 
the  tillers  of  the  earth  in  any  of  the  other  provinces.  And, 
ui)on  the  Avhole,  the  people  were  contented.  The  Tuscan 
public  was  certainly  not  a  "pensive  public."  They  ate 
their  bread  not  without  due  condiment  of  compagnati- 
co*  or  even  their  chestnuts  in  the  more  remote  and  primi- 
tive mountain  districts,  drank  their  sound  Tuscan  wine 
from  the  generous,  big-bellied  Tuscan  flasks,  holding  three 
good  bottles,  and  sang  their  stornelli  in  cheerfulness  of 
heart,  and  had  no  craving  whatsoever  for  those  few  spe- 
cial liberties  which  were  denied  them. 

Epiciiri  de  grege  porci !  No  progress  !  Yes,  I  know 
all  that,  and  am  not  saying  what  should  have  been,  but 
what  was.  There  icas  no  progress.  The  contadini  on  the 
little  farm  which  I  came  to  possess  before  I  left  Tuscany 
cultivated  it  precisely  after  the  fashion  of  their  grand- 
fathers and  great-grandfathers,  and  strenuously  resisted 
any  suggestion  that  it  could,  should,  or  might  be  cultivated 


*  Anything  to  make  the  bread  "go  down,"  as  our  people  say — a  morsel 
of  bacon  or  sausage,  a  handful  of  ligs  or  grapes,  or  a  bit  of  cheese. 


REMINISCEXCES  AT   FLOREXCE.  405 

in  any  other  way.  But  my  contadino  inhabited  a  large 
and  roomy  casa  colonic  a  ;  he  and  his  buxom  wife  had  six 
stalwart  sons,  and  was  the  richer  man  in  consequence  of 
having  them.  No,  in  ray  early  Florentine  days  the  co- 
gito,  ergo  sum,  could  not  have  been  predicated  of  the  Tus- 
cans. 

But  the  condition  of  things  in  the  other  states  of  the 
peninsula,  in  Venice  and  Lombardy  under  the  Austrians, 
in  Naples  under  the  Bourbon  kings,  in  Roraagna  under 
the  pope,  and  very  specially  in  ]Modena  under  its  dukes  of 
the  House  of  Este,  was  much  otherwise.  In  those  regions 
the  Italians  were  "  thinking"  a  great  deal,  and  had  been 
thinking  for  some  time  past.  And  somewhere  about  1849, 
those  troublesome  members  of  the  body  social  who  are 
not  contented  with  eating,  drinking,  and  singing — cantank- 
erous reading  and  writing  people  living  in  towns,  who 
wanted  most  unreasonably  to  say,  as  the  phrase  goes,  that 
"  their  souls  were  their  own  "  (as  if  such  fee-simple  rights 
ever  fall  to  the  lot  of  any  man  !) — began  in  Tuscany  to 
give  signs  that  they  also  were  "thinking." 

I  remember  well  that  Alb6ri,  the  highly  accomplished 
and  learned  editor  of  the  "Reports  of  the  Venetian  Am- 
bassadors," and  of  the  great  edition  of  Galileo's  Avorks,  was 
the  first  man  who  opened  my  altogether  innocent  eyes  to 
the  fact  that  the  revolutionary  leaven  was  working  in 
Tuscany,  and  that  there  were  social  breakers  ahead.  This 
must  have  been  as  early  as  1845,  or  possibly  1844.  Al- 
beri  himself  was  a  Throne-and-Altar  man,  who  thought, 
for  his  part,  that  the  amount  of  jtropriettn'ship  over  his 
own  soul  whicli  the  existing  regime  allowed  him  was 
enough  for  his  purposes.  IJut,  as  he  confided  to  me,  a  very 
strong  current  of  opinion  was  beginning  to  run  the  other 
way  in  Florence,  in  Leghorn,  in  T.ucca,  and  manv  sTualler 
cities — not  in  Sitna,  which  always  was,  and  is  still,  a  nest 
of  conservative  feeling. 

Nevertheless  tliere  never  \va>^,  at  least  in  Florence,  the 
strength  and  bitterness  of  revolutionary  feeling  that  exist- 
ed almost  everywhere  else  throughout  Italy.  I  remember 
a  scene  which  furnished  a  very  remarkable  ]»ro()f  of  this, 
and  which  was  at  the  same  time  very  curiously  and  signifi- 


406  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

caiitly  characteristic  of  the  Florentine  character,  at  least 
as  it  then  existed. 

It  was  dnrinG:  the  time  of  the  Austrian  occupation  of 
Florence.  On  the  whole  the  Austrian  troops  behaved 
well  ;  and  their  doings,  and  the  spirit  in  which  the  job  they 
had  in  hand  was  carried  out,  were  very  favoralily  con- 
trasted with  the  tyranny,  the  insults,  and  the  aggressive 
arrogance  with  which  the  French  army  of  occupation 
afflicted  the  Romans.  The  Austrians  accordinsflv  were 
never  hated  in  Florence  with  the  bitter  intensity  of  hate 
which  the  French  earned  in  the  Eternal  City.  Neverthe- 
less, there  were  now  and  then  occasions  when  the  Floren- 
tine populace  gratified  their  love  of  a  holiday  and  testified 
to  the  purity  of  their  Italian  patriotism  by  turning  out 
into  the  streets  and  kicking  up  a  row. 

It  was  on  an  occasion  of  this  sort  that  the  narrow  street 
called  Por'  Santa  Maria,  which  runs  up  from  the  Ponte 
Vecchio  to  the  Piazza,  was  thickly  crowded  with  people. 
A  young  lieutenant  had  been  sent  to  that  })art  of  the  town 
with  a  small  detachment  of  cavalry  to  clear  the  streets. 
Judging  from  the  aspect  of  the  people,  as  his  men,  coming 
down  the  Lung'  Arno,  turned  into  the  narrow  street,  he 
did  not  half  like  the  job  before  him.  He  thought  there 
certainly  would  be  bloodshed.  And  just  as  his  men  were 
turning  the  corner  and  beginning  to  push  their  horses  into 
the  crowd,  one  of  them  slipped  sideways  on  the  flagstones, 
with  which,  most  distressingly  to  horses  not  used  to  them, 
the  streets  of  Florence  are  paved,  and  came  down  with 
his  rider  partly  under  him. 

The  officer  thought,  "Now  for  trouble  !  That  man  will 
be  killed  to  a  certainty."  The  crowd — who  were  filling 
the  air  with  shouts  of  "7l/or?e.^"  "  Abbasso  P Austria  P^ 
"Jfoy'te  ar/ll  AnMriaciP''*  —  crowded  round  the  fallen 
trooper,  while  the  officer  tried  to  push  forw^ard  towards 
the  spot.  But  Avhen  he  got  within  earshot,  and  could  see 
also  what  was  taking  place,  he  saw  the  people  immediate- 
ly round  the  fallen  man  busily  disengaging  him  from  his 
horse,     ^^0  poverinol    Ti  set  fatto  male?   Orsu!    JVon 

♦  "  Death  !"     "  Down  with  Austria !"     "  Death  to  the  Austrians  !" 


REMINISCENCES   AT   FLORENCE.  407 

saraniente!  Sii!  A  cavallo,ehP^^*  And  having  helped 
the  man  to  remount,  they  returned  to  their  amusement  of 
^"■Jlorte  agli  Austriaci  /"  The  young  officer  perceived  that 
he  had  a  very  different  sort  of  populace  to  deal  with  from 
an  angry  crowd  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  or  indeed 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Apennines. 

I  remember  another  circumstance  which  occurred  a  few 
years  previously  to  that  just  mentioned,  and  wdiich  was 
in  its  way  equally  characteristic.  In  one  of  i:he  principal 
cafes  of  Florence,  situated  on  the  Piazza  del  Duonio — the 
cathedral  yard — a  murder  was  committed.  The  deed  was 
done  in  fidl  daylight,  when  the  cafe  was  full  of  people. 
Such  crimes,  and  indeed  violent  crimes  of  any  sort,  were 
exceedingly  rare  in  Florence,  That  in  question  was  com- 
mitted by  stabbing,  and  the  motive  of  the  criminal,  who 
had  come  to  Florence  for  the  express  purpose  of  killing 
bis  enemy,  was  vengeance  for  a  great  wrong.  Having  ac- 
complished his  purpose,  he  quietly  walked  out  of  the  cafe 
and  went  away.  I  happened  to  be  on  the  spot  shortly 
afterwards,  and  inquired,  with  some  surprise  at  the  escape 
of  the  murderer,  why  he  had  not  been  arrested  red-handed. 
"  lie  had  a  sword  in  his  hand  !"  said  the  person  to  whom 
I  had  addressed  myself,  in  a  tone  which  implied  that  that 
quite  settled  the  matter — that  of  course  it  was  absolutely 
out  of  the  question  to  attempt  to  interfere  with  a  man 
who  had  a  sword  in  his  hand  ! 

It  is  a  very  singular  thing,  and  one  for  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  offer  any  satisfactory  explanation,  that  the  change 
in  Florence  in  respect  to  the  prevalence  of  crime  has  bt-en 
of  late  years  very  great  indeed.  I  have  mentioned  more 
than  once,  I  think,  the  very  remarkable  absence  of  all 
crimes  of  violence  which  characterized  Florence  in  the 
earlier  time  of  my  residence  there.  It  was  not  due  to 
rigorous  reju-ession  or  vigilance  of  the  ])olicc,  as  may  be 
j»artly  judgeil  by  the  above  anecdote.  There  was,  in  fact, 
no  police  that  merited  the  name.  \\\\X  anything  in  the 
nature  of  burglarv  was  unheard  of.     The  streets  were  so 


•  "  ()li,  poor  ffhow  I      ii.ivc  voii  liiirt  voiirsdf  ?     t'|)  witli  vou  !     It  will 
be  notliing  I     Up  I     Agiin  on  your  horse,  oh  ?" 


408  WHAT  I    REMEMBER. 

absolutely  safe  that  any  lady  might  have  traversed  them 
alone  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night.  And  I  might  add 
to  the  term  "  crimes  of  violence "  the  further  statement 
that  pocket-picking  Avas  equally  unheard  of. 

JVbto  there  is  perhaps  more  crime  of  a  heinous  character 
in  Florence,  in  proportion  to  the  population,  than  in  any 
city  in  the  peninsula.  I  think  that  about  the  first  indica- 
tion that  all  that  glittered  in  the  mansuctude  of  Firenze 
la  Gentile  was  not  gold  showed  itself  on  the  occasion  of 
an  attempt  to  naturalize  at  Florence  the  traditional  sport- 
iveness  of  the  Roman  Carnival.  There  and  then,  as  all 
the  world  knows,  it  has  been  the  immemorial  habit  for 
the  population,  high  and  low,  to  pelt  the  folks  in  the  car- 
riages during  their  Corso  procession  with  bonbons,  bou- 
quets, and  the  like.  Gradually  at  Rome  this  exquisite 
fooling  has  degenerated  under  the  influence  of  modern  no- 
tions till  the  bouquets  having  become  cabbage  stalks,  very 
eifective  as  offensive  missiles,  and  the  bonbons  plaster-of- 
Paris  pellets,  with  an  accompanying  substitution  of  a 
spiteful  desire  to  inflict  injury  for  the  old  horse-play,  it 
has  become  necessary  to  limit  the  duration  of  the  Satur- 
nalia to  the  briefest  span,  with  the  sure  prospect  of  its 
being  very  shortly  altogether  prohibited.  But  at  Flor- 
ence on  the  first  occasion,  now  several  years  ago,  of  an 
attempt  to  imitate  the  Roman  practice,  the  conduct  of 
the  populace  was  such  as  to  demand  imperatively  the  im- 
mediate suppression  of  it.  The  carriages  and  the  occu- 
pants of  them  were  attacked  by  such  volleys  of  stones 
and  mud,  and  the  animus  of  the  people  was  so  evidently 
malevolent  and  dangerous,  that  they  were  at  once  driven 
from  the  scene,  and  any  repetition  of  the  practice  was  for- 
bidden. 

It  is  so  remarkable  as  to  be,  at  all  events,  worth  noting, 
that  contemporaneously  with  this  singular  deterioration 
in  respect  to  crime,  another  social  change  has  taken  place 
in  Florence.  Za  Gentile  Firenze  has  of  late  years  be- 
come very  markedly  the  home  of  clericalism  of  a  high  and 
aggressive  type.  This  is  an  entirely  new  feature  in  the 
Floj-entine  social  world.  In  the  old  time  clerical  views 
were  sufticiently  supported  by  the  government  to  give 


REMINISCENCES  AT   FLORENCE.  409 

rise  to  the  famous  Madiai  incident,  which  has  been  before 
alluded  to.  But  clericalism  in  its  more  aggressive  aspects 
was  not  in  the  ascendant  either  bureaucratically  or  social- 
ly. The  spirit  which  had  informed  the  policy  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  famous  Leopoldine  laws  was  still  suffi- 
ciently alive  in  the  mental  habitudes  of  both  governors  and 
governed  to  render  Tuscany  a  rather  suspected  and  dis- 
liked region  in  the  mind  of  the  Vatican  and  of  the  secular 
governments  which  sympathized  with  the  Vatican's  views 
and  sentiments.  The  change  that  has  taken  place  is  there- 
fore a  very  notable  one.  I  have  no  such  sufficiently  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  subject  as  would  justify  me  in  link- 
ins:  tot^ethcr  the  two  changes  I  have  noticed  in  the  con- 
nection  of  cause  and  effect.     I  only  note  the  synchronism. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  not  wanting  sociologists 
who  maintain  that  the  cause  of  the  outburst  of  lawless- 
ness and  crime  which  has  undeniably  characterized  Flor- 
ence of  late  years  is  to  be  sought  for  exactly  in  that  old- 
time,  easy-going  tolerance  in  religious  matters  which  they 
say  is  now  producing  a  tardy  but  sure  crop  from  seeds 
that,  however  long  in  disclosing  the  true  nature  of  the 
harvest  to  be  expected  from  them,  ought  never  to  have 
been  expected  by  wise  legislators  to  produce  any  other. 

N'on  nostrum  est  tantas  componere  lites!  But  Florence 
is  certainly  no  longer  Firenze  la  Gentile^  as  she  so  emi- 
nently was  in  the  days  when  I  knew  her  so  well. 

When  any  (»f  the  other  cities  of  Italy  have  in  any  degree 
ceased  tu  merit  the  traditional  epithets  Avhich  so  many 
successive  generations  assigned  to  them — how  far  Genoa 
is  still  la  Superha,  Bologna  la  Gntssa,  Padua  la  Dotta, 
Lucca  la  Industriosa — I  cannot  say.  Venezia  is  unques- 
tionablv  still  la  Bella.  And  as  for  old  Konie,  she  vindi- 
cates  more  than  ever  her  title  to  the  ejiiliiet  F(a-n<i,  by 
her  similitude  to  those  nursery  toys  which,  throw  them 
ahout  as  you  will,  still  with  infallible  certitude  come  down 
heads  uppermost. 

As  for  the  Florence  of  my  old  recollections,  there  were 
in  the  early  days  of  them  many  litth'  old  world  sights  and 
pounds  wliicli  are  to  be  seen  ;iinl  heard    no   longer,  an<l 
which  ditTerentiated  llir  place  from  other  social  centres. 
18 


410  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

I  remember  a  striking  incident  of  this  sort  which  hap- 
pened to  my  mother  and  myself  "  in  the  days  before  the 
flood,"  therefore  very  shortly  after  our  arrival  there. 

It  was  the  practice  in  those  days  to  carry  the  bodies  of 
the  dead  on  open  biers,  with  uncovered  faces,  to  their  burial. 
It  had  doubtless  been  customary  in  old  times  so  to  carry 
all  the  dead  ;  but  the  custom  was  retained  at  the  time 
of  Avhich  I  am  writing  only  in  the  case  of  distinguished 
persons,  and  very  generally  of  the  priesthood.  I  remem- 
ber, for  instance,  a  poor  little  humpbacked  grand  duchess 
being  so  carried  through  the  street  magnificently  be- 
decked as  if  she  were  going  to  a  ball,  and  with  painted 
cheeks.  She  had  been  a  beneficent  little  bodv,  and  the 
people,  as  far  as  they  knew  anything  about  her,  revered 
her,  and  looked  on  her  last  presentation  to  them  with  sym- 
pathetic feelings.  But  it  was  a  sorry  sight  to  see  the  poor 
little  body,  looking  much  like  a  bedizened  monkey,  so 
paraded. 

AVell,  my  mother  and  I  were,  aimlessly  but  much  admir- 
ingly, wandering  about  the  vast  spaces  of  the  cathedral 
when  we  became  aware  of  Sifunzione  of  some  sort — a  ser- 
vice as  we  should  say — being  conducted  in  a  far  part  of 
the  building.  There  was  no  great  crowd,  but  a  score  or 
two  of  spectators,  mainly  belonging  to  the  gamin  category, 
were  standing  around  the  officiating  priests  and  curiously 
looking  on.  We  went  towards  the  spot,  and  found  that 
the  burial  service  was  being  performed  over  the  body  of  a 
young  priest.  The  body  lay  on  its  back  on  the  o^^en  bier, 
clad  in  full  canonicals  and  with  the  long  tasselled  caj)  of  the 
secular  clergy  on  his  head.  We  stood  and  gazed  with  the 
others,  when  suddenly  I  saw  the  dead  man's  head  slightly 
move  !  A  shiver,  I  confess,  ran  through  me.  A  moment's 
reflection,  however,  reminded  me  of  the  recognized  deceit- 
fulness  of  the  eyes  in  such  matters,  and  I  did  not  doubt 
that  I  had  been  mistaken.  But  the  next  minute  I  again 
saw  the  dead  priest  slightly  shake  his  head,  and  tliis  time 
I  was  sure  that  I  was  not  mistaken.  I  clutched  my  moth- 
er's arm  and  pointed,  and  again  saw  tlie  awful  phenomenon, 
which  sent  a  cold  wave  through  both  of  us  from  head  to 
foot.     But  nobody  save  ourselves  seemed  to  have  seen 


REMIXISCEXCES  AT   FLORENCE.  411 

anything  unusual.  The  service  was  proceeding  in  its 
wonted  order.  Doubting  whether  it  might  possibly  be 
one  of  those  horrible  cases  of  suspended  animation  and 
mistaken  death,  I  was  thinking  whether  it  were  not  my 
duty  to  call  attention  to  the  startling  thing  we  had  seen, 
and  had  with  outstretched  neck  and  peering  eyes  advanced 
a  step  for  further  observation,  and  with  the  half-formed 
purpose  of  declaring  aloud  that  the  man  was  not  dead, 
when  I  spied  crouched  beneath  the  bier  a  little  monkey, 
some  nine  or  ten  years  old,  who  had  taken  in  his  hand  the 
tassel  of  the  cap,  which  hung  down  between  the  wooden 
bars  which  formed  the  bier,  and  was  amusing  himself  witli 
slowly  swaying  it  forward  and  backward,  and  had  thus 
communicated  the  motion  to  the  dead  man's  head  !  It 
was  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  the  little  urchin  had 
been  able  to  reach  the  position  he  occupied  without  hav- 
ing been  observed  by  any  of  the  clerical  attendants,  of 
whom  several  were  jiresent,  and  still  more  difficult  to  sup- 
pose that  no  one  of  them  had  seen  what  we  saw,  standing 
immediately  in  front  of  the  corpse  while  one  of  them  per- 
formed the  rite  of  lustration  with  holy  water,  the  vessel 
containing  which  was  held  by  another.  But  no  one  inter- 
fered, and  none  but  those  who  know  the  Florentines  as 
well  as  I  kn(jw  them  can  feel  how  curiously  and  intensely 
characteristic  of  them  was  the  fact  that  no  one  did  so. 
The  awful  reverence  for  death  which  would  have  impelled 
an  Englishman  of  almost  any  social  position  to  feel  in- 
dignation and  instantly  ])ut  a  stop  to  what  he  would  con- 
sider a  jirofaiiation,  was  absolutely  unknown  to  all  those 
engaged  in  that  perfunctory  rite.  A  certain  amount  of 
trouble  and  disturbance  would  have  been  caused  by  dis- 
lodging the  culprit,  and  each  man  there  felt  only  this  ; 
that  it  difln't  matter  a  straw,  and  that  thcjv  was  no  reason 
for  him  to  take  the  trouble  of  noticing  it.  As  far  as  I 
could  observe,  the  amusement  the  little  wretch  derived 
from  his  j»<'rf(»rmance  was  entirely  nnsoc-ial,  and  confined 
to  his  own  breast ;  for  I  cotild  not  see  that  any  of  the 
gainiii  fraternity  notic('(l  it,  or  carrd  al)out  it,  any  more 
than  their  seniors. 

I  remember  another  somewhat  analogous  adventure  of 


412  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

mine,  equally  illustrative  of  the  Florentine  habits  of  those 
days.  I  saw  a  man  suddenly  stagger  and  fall  in  the  street. 
It  was  in  the  afternoon,  and  there  were  many  persons  in 
the  street,  some  of  them  nearer  to  the  fallen  man  than  I 
was,  but  nobody  attempted  to  help  him.  I  stepped  for- 
ward to  do  so,  and  was  about  to  take  hold  of  him  and  try 
to  raise  him,  when  one  of  the  bystanders  eagerly  caught 
me  by  the  arm,  saying,  "  lie  is  dying,  he  is  dying  !"  "  Let 
us  try  to  raise  him,"  said  I,  still  pressing  forward.  "  You 
mustn't,  you  mustn't !  It  is  not  permitted,"  he  added,  as 
he  perceived  that  he  was  speaking  to  a  foreigner,  and  then 
went  on  to  explain  to  me  that  what  must  be  done  was  to 
call  the  Misericordia,  for  which  purpose  one- must  run  and 
ring  a  certain  bell  attached  to  the  chapel  of  that  brother- 
hood in  the  Piazza  del  Duomo. 

Among  the  many  things  that  have  been  written  of  the 
Florentine  Misericordia,  I  do  not  think  that  I  have  met 
with  the  statement  that  it  used  to  be  universally  believed 
in  Florence  that  the  law  gave  the  black  brethren  the  privi- 
lege and  the  monopoly  of  picking  up  any  dying  or  dead 
person  in  the  streets,  and  that  it  was  forbidden  to  any  one 
else  to  do  so.  Whether  any  such  laio  really  existed  I  much 
doubt,  but  the  custom  of  acting  in  accordance  with  it,  and 
the  belief  that  such  practice  was  imperative,  undoubtedly 
did.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  many  a  life  has  been 
sacrificed  to  it.  The  half-hour  or  twenty  minutes  which 
necessarily  elapsed  before  the  JMisericordia  could  be  called 
and  answer  the  call  must  often  have  been  supremely  im- 
portant, and  in  many  cases  ought  to  have  been  employed 
in  the  judicious  use  of  the  lancet. 

The  sight  of  the  black-robed  and  black-cowled  brethren, 
as  they  went  about  the  streets  on  their  errands  of  mercy, 
was  common  enough  in  Florence.  But  the  holiday  visitor 
had  very  little  opportunity  of  hearing  anything  of  the  in- 
ternal management  and  rules  of  that  peculiar  mediaeval 
society  or  of  the  nature  of  the  work  it  did. 

The  Florentine  Misericordia  was  founded  in  the  days 
when  pestilence  was  ravaging  the  city  so  fiercely  that  the 
dead  lay  uncared  for  in  the  streets,  because  there  was  no 
man  sufficiently  courageous   to  bury  or  to  touch  them. 


REMINISCENCES   AT   FLORENCE.  413 

The  members  of  the  association,  which  was  formed  for  the 
performance  of  this  charitable  and  arduous  duty,  chose 
for  themselves  a  costume  the  object  of  which  was  the  ab- 
solute concealment  of  the  individual  performing  it.  A 
loose  black  linen  gown  drapes  the  figure  from  the  neck 
to  the  heels,  and  a  black  cowl,  with  two  holes  cut  for  the 
eyes,  covers  and  effectually  conceals  the  head  and  face. 
For  more  than  five  hundred  years,  up  to  the  present  day, 
the  dress  remains  the  same,  and  no  human  being,  either  of 
those  to  whom  their  services  are  rendered,  or  of  the  thou- 
sands who  see  them  going  about  in  the  performance  of 
their  self-imposed  duty,  can  know  whether  the  mysterious 
Aveird-looking  figure  he  sees  be  prince  or  peasant.  He 
knows  that  he  may  be  either,  for  the  members  of  the 
brotherhood  are  drawn  from  all  classes  of  society. 

It  used  to  be  whispered,  and  I  have  good  reasons  for  be- 
lieving the  whisper  to  have  been  true,  that  the  late  grand 
duke  Avas  a  member,  and  took  his  turn  of  duty  Avith  his 
brethren.  Some  indiscreet  personal  attendant  blabbed  the 
secret,  for  assuredly  the  duke  himself  was  never  untrue  to 
the  oath  which  binds  the  members  to  secrecy. 

The  whole  society  Is  divided  into  a  number  of  com- 
panies, one  of  which  is  by  turns  on  duty.  There  is  a  large, 
most  melancholy,  and  ominously  sounding  bell  in  the 
chapel  of  the  brotherhood  (not  that  already  mentioned 
by  which  anybody  can  call  the  attention  of  I  he  brother  in 
permanent  attendance,  but  a  much  larger  one),  which  is 
heard  all  over  the  city.  This  summons  the  immediate 
attendance  of  every  member  of  the  company  on  duty,  and 
the  mysterious  black  figures  may  any  day  be  seen  hurry- 
ing to  the  rendezvous.  There  they  learn  the  nature  of  the 
call,  and  the  ])lace  at  which  their  jiresence  is  required. 

T  renu'inber  the  case  of  an  iMiglish  girl  who  was  fear- 
fully burne<l  at  a  villa  at  some  little  distance  from  the  city. 
The  injuries  were  so  severe  that,  while  it  was  extremely 
desirable  that  sl>e  shouM  br  icinoved  to  a  hospital,  there 
was  much  doubt  as  to  the  possiiiility  of  moving  her.  In 
this  ditVu'ulty  the  Misericordia  were  summoned.  1  li«y 
came,  live  or  six  of  theni,  bringing  with  them  their  too 
well-known  black-covered  litter,  and  transported  the  pa- 


414  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

tient  to  the  hospital,  lifting  her  from  her  bed  and  placing 
her  in  the  litter  with  an  exquisitely  delicate  and  skilled 
gentleness  of  handling  which  sjjared  her  suffering  to  the 
utmost,  and  excited  the  surprise  and  admiration  of  the 
English  medical  man  who  witnessed  the  operation.  Every 
part  of  the  work,  every  movement,  was  executed  in  ab- 
solute silence  and  with  combined  obedience  to  sisjnalled 
orders  from  the  leader  of  the  company. 

Another  case  which  was  brought  under  my  notice  was 
that  of  a  woman  suffering  from  dropsy,  which  made  the 
necessary  removal  of  her  a  very  arduous  and  difficult 
operation.  It  would  probably  have  been  deemed  impos- 
sible save  by  the  assistance  of  the  Misericordia,  who  man- 
aged so  featly  and  deftly  that  those  who  saw  it  marvelled 
at  the  skill  and  accurately  co-operating  force,  which  noth- 
ing but  long  practice  could  have  made  possible. 

It  is  a  law  of  the  brotherhood,  never  broken,  that  they 
are  to  accept  nothing,  not  so  much  as  a  glass  of  water,  in 
any  house  to  which  they  are  called.  The  Florentines  well 
know  how  much  they  owe  as  a  community,  and  how  much 
each  man  may  some  day  come  to  owe  personally  to  the 
Misericordia;  and  when  the  doleful  clang  of  their  well- 
known  bell  is  heard  booming  over  the  city,  women  may 
be  seen  to  cross  themselves  with  a  muttered  prayer,  while 
men,  ashamed  of  their  religiosity,  but  moved  by  feeling 
as  well  as  habit,  will  furtively  do  the  same. 

There  is  an  association  at  Rome  copied  from  that  at 
Florence,  and  vowed  to  the  performance  of  very  similar 
duties.  I  once  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the  registers 
of  this  Roman  Misericordia,  and  was  much  impressed  by 
the  frequently  recurring  entry  of  excursions  into  the  Cara- 
pagna  to  bring  in  the  corpses  of  men  murdered  and  left 
there  ! 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 

EEMixiscEXCES  AT  FLORENCE — Continued. 

Among  the  other  things  that  contributed  to  make  those 
Florence  da5's  very  pleasant  ones,  we  did  a  good  deal  in 
the  way  of  private  theatricals.  Our  impresario,  at  least 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  time,  was  Arthur  Vansittart.  He 
engaged  the  Cocoraero  Theatre  for  our  performances,  and 
to  the  best  of  mv  remembrance  defrayed  the  whole  of  the 
expense  out  of  his  own  pocket.  Vansittart  was  an  excep- 
tionally tall  man,  a  thread-paper  of  a  man,  and  a  very  bad 
actQr.  He  was  exceedingly  noisy,  and  pushed  vivacity  to 
its  extreme  limits.  I  remember  well  his  appearance  in 
some  play — I  fancy  it  was  in  "The  Road  to  Ruin,"  in 
which  I  represented  some  character,  I  entirely  forget  what 
— where  he  comes  on  with  a  four-in-hand  whip  in  his  hand  ; 
and  I  remember,  too,  that  for  the  other  performers  in  that 
piece,  their  appearance  on  the  stage  was  a  service  of  dan- 
ger, from  which  the  occupants  of  the  stage-boxes  were 
not  entirely  free.  But  he  was  inexhaustibly  good-natured 
and  good-humored,  and  gave  us  excellent  suppers  after  the 
jK'rformaiK'o. 

'i'lieii  there  was  Edward  Hobhouse,  with — more  or  less 
with — his  exceedingly  pretty  and  clever  wife,  and  her  sis- 
ter, the  not  at  all  pretty  but  still  more  clever  and  very 
witty  Miss  Graves.  Hobhouse  was  a  man  abounding  in 
talent  of  all  sorts,  extremely  witty,  brimful  of  humor,  a 
thorough  good  fellow,  and  very  poj)ular.  He  and  his  wife, 
though  very  good  friends,  did  not  entirely  pull  together  ; 
and  it  used  to  be  told  of  him  that,  r('])Iying  to  a  man  who 
asked  him  "How's  your  wife?"  he  answerer],  with  much 
humorous  semblance  of  indi<_aiation,  "  Well,  if  you  come 
to  that,  how's  voursV  Holjiiouse  was  far  and  awav  the 
cleverest  and  best-educated  man  of  tlie  little  set  (tliese 
dramatic  reminiscences    refer   \n  tlie  early  y<"ars  of  my 


416  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

Florence  life),  and,  in  truth,  was  somewhat  regrettably- 
wasted  in  the  midst  of  such  a  frivolous  and  idle  commu- 
nity.    But  I  take  it  that  he  was  much  of  an  invalid. 

Of  course  we  got  up  "  The  Rivals."  I  was  at  first  Bob 
Acres,  with  an  Irishman  of  the  name  of  Torrens  for  my 
Sir  Lucius,  which  he  acted,  when  we  could  succeed  in 
keej)ing  him  sober,  to  the  life.  My  Bob  Acres  was  not 
much  of  a  success.  And  I  subsequently  took  Sir  Anthony, 
which  remained  my  stock  part  for  years,  and  which  I  was 
considered  to  do  well. 

Sir  Francis  Vincent,  a  resident  in  Florence  for  many 
years,  with  whom  I  was  for  several  of  them  very  intimate, 
played  the  ungrateful  part  of  Falkland.  He  was  a  heavy 
actor  with  fairly  good  elocution  and  delivery,  and  not  un- 
fitted for  a  part  which  it  might  have  been  difficult  to  fill 
Avithout  him.  He  was  to  a  great  degree  a  reading  man, 
and  had  a  considerable  knowledge  of  the  byways  of  FJor- 
entiiie  history. 

My  mother  "brought  the  house  down  "  nightly  as  Mrs. 
Malaprop;  and  a  very  exceptionally  beautiful  Madame  de 
Parcieu  (an  Englishwoman  married  to  a  Frenchman)  was, 
in  appearance,  manih'e  cVetre,  and  deportment,  the  verita- 
ble beau  ideal  of  Lydia  Languish,  and  might  have  made  a 
furore  on  any  stage,  if  it  had  been  possible  to  induce  her 
to  raise  her  voice  sufficiently.  She  was  most  good-nat- 
uredly amenable.  But  when  she  was  thus  driven  against 
her  nature  and  habits  to  speak  out,  all  the  excellence  of 
her  acting  was  gone.  The  meaning  of  the  words  was 
taken  out  of  them. 

Sir  Anthony  Absolute  became,  as  I  said,  my  stock  part. 
And  the  phrase  is  justified  by  my  having  acted  it  many 
years  afterwards  in  a  totally  different  company — I  the 
only  remaininjj  brick  of  the  old  edifice — and  to  audiences 
not  one  of  whom  could  have  witnessed  the  performances 
of  those  earlier  days.  Mrs.  Richie,  an  American  lady — 
who  had,  I  think,  been  known  on  a  London  stage  under  the 
name  of  "  Mowatt" — was  in  those  latter  days,  now  so  far 
away  in  the  dim  past,  our  manageress.  Mrs.  Proby,  the 
wife — now,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  vvidow — of  the  British 
consul,  was  on  that  occasion  our  Mrs.  Malaprop,  and  was 


REMINISCEXCES   AT   FLORENCE.  417 

an  excellent  representative  of  that  popular  lady,  though 
she  will,  I  am  sure,  forgive  me  for  saying  not  so  perfect  a 
one  as  mv  mother. 

Quite  indescribably  strange  is  the  effect  on  my  mind  of 
looking  back  at  my  three  Thespian  avatars — Falstaff  at 
Cincinnati,  Acres  and  Sir  Anthony  in  Grand  Ducal  Flor- 
ence, and  Sir  Anthony  again  in  a  liberated  Tuscany,  I 
seem  to  myself  like  some  old  mail-coach  guard,  who  goes 
through  the  whole  long  journey,  while  successive  coach- 
men "  Leave  you  here,  sir  ?"  But  then  in  my  case  the 
passengers  are  all  changed  too  ;  and  I  arrive  at  the  end  of 
the  journey  without  one  "  inside  "  or  "  outside  "  of  those 
who  started  with  me.  I  can  still  blow  my  horn  cheerily, 
however,  and  chat  with  the  passengers  who  joined  the 
coach  when  my  journey  was  half  done  as  if  they  were 
quite  old  fellow-travellers. 

It  must  not  be  imagined,  however,  that  that  pleasant 
life  at  Florence  was  all  cakes  and  ale. 

I  Avas,  upon  the  whole,  a  hard  worker.  I  wrote  a  series 
of  volumes  on  various  portions  of  Italian,  and  especially 
Florentine  history,  beginning  with  "  The  Girlhood  of 
Catharine  de' Medici."  They  were  all  fairly  well  received, 
the  "Life  of  Filipito  Strozzi*'  perhaps  the  more  so.  But 
the  volume  on  the  story  of  the  great  quarrel  between  the 
Papacy  and  Venice,  entitled  "  Paul  the  Pope  and  Paul  the 
Friar,"  was,  I  think,  the  best.  The  volumes  entitled  "A 
Decade  of  Italian  Women,"  and  dealing  with  ten  typical 
historic  female  figures,  has  attained,  I  believe,  to  some 
share  of  jniblic  favor.  I  see  it  not  uiifre(juently  quoted 
by  writers  on  Italian  subjects.  Then  I  made  a  more  am- 
bitious attempt,  and  j)roduced  a  "  History  of  the  Common- 
wealth of  Florence,"  in  four  volumes. 

Such  a  work  a])peals,of  course,  to  a  comparatively  limited 
audience.  But  that  it  was  recognized  to  have  some  value 
among  certain  Anglo-Saxons  whose  favorable  judgment 
in  the  matter  was  worth  having,  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  a  text-book  in  our  own  and  in  trans- 
atlanli<'  universities  ;  while  a  verdict  j)erha]ts  still  more 
flattering  (though  I  will  not  say  more  gratifying)  was 
given  by  Professor  Pasquale  Villari  (now  senator  of  the 
18* 


418  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

kingdom  of  Itah^),  who,  in  a  lettei*  in  ray  possession,  pro- 
nounces my  history  of  Florence  to  be  in  his  opinion  the 
best  work  on  the  subject  extant. 

Professor  Villari  is  not  only  an  accomplished  scholar  of 
a  Mude  range  of  culture,  but  his  praise  of  any  work  on 
Italian — and  perhaps  especially  on  Tuscan — history  comes 
from  no  "  prentice  han'."  His  masterly  "  Life  of  Macchia- 
velli "  is  as  well  known  in  our  country  as  in  his  own, 
through  the  translation  of  it  into  English  by  his  gifted 
Avife,  Linda  Villari,  whilom  Linda  White,  and  my  very 
valued  friend.  All  these  historical  books  were  written 
con  amove.  The  study  of  bygone  Florentines  had  an  in- 
terest for  me  which  was  quickened  by  the  daily  and  hour- 
ly study  of  living  Florentines.  It  was  curious  to  mark  in 
them  resemblances  of  character,  temperament,  idiosyn- 
crasy, defects,  and  merits  to  those  of  their  forefathers 
who  move  and  breathe  before  us  in  the  pages  of  such  old 
chroniclers  as  Yillani,  Segni,  Varchi,  and  the  rest,  and  in 
sundry  fire-graven  strophes  and  lines  of  their  mighty  poet. 
Dante's  own  local  and  limited  characteristics,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  universality  of  his  poetic  genius,  have 
always  seemed  to  me  quintessentially  Tuscan. 

Of  course  it  is  among  the  lower  orders  that  such  traits 
are  chiefly  found,  and  among  the  lower  orders  in  the  coun- 
try more  than  those  in  the  towns.  But  there  is,  or  was, 
for  I  speak  of  years  ago,  a  considerable  conservative  pride 
in  their  own  inherited  customs  and  traditions  common  to 
all  classes. 

Especially  this  is  perceived  in  the  speech  of  the  genuine 
Florentine.  Quaint  proverbs,  not  always  of  scrupulous 
refinement,  old-world  phrases,  local  allusions,  are  stuffed 
into  the  conversation  of  your  real  citizen  or  citizeness  of 
Firenze  la  Gentile  as  thickly  as  the  beads  in  the  vezzo 
di  corallo  on  the  neck  of  a  contadina.  And,  above  all,  the 
accent — the  soft  (not  to  say  slobbering)  c  and  g,  and  the 
guttural  aspirate  which  turns  casa  into  hasa  and  capitaU 
into  Jiajntale,  and  so  forth — this  is  cherished  with  peculiar 
fondness.  I  have  heard  a  young,  elegant,  and  accomplished 
woman  discourse  in  very  choice  Italian  with  the  accent  of 
a  market-woman,  and,  on  being  remonstrated  with  for  the 


REMIXISGEXCES   AT  FLORENCE.  4I9 

use  of  some  very  pungent  proverbial  illustration  in  her 
talk,  she  replied  with  conviction,  "  That  is  the  right  way 
to  speak  Tuscan.  I  have  nothing  to  Jo  with  what  Ital- 
ians from  other  provinces  may  prefer.  But  pure,  racy 
Tuscan — the  Tuscan  tongue  that  we  have  inherited — is 
spoken  as  I  speak  it — or  ought  to  be  I" 

I  had  gathered  together,  partly  for  my  own  pleasure, 
and  partly  in  the  course  of  historical  researches,  a  valu- 
able collection  of  works  on  Storia  Patria,  which  wei'e 
sold  by  me  when  I  gave  up  my  house  there.  The  reading 
of  Italian,  even  very  crabbed  and  ancient  Italian  which 
might  have  puzzled  more  than  one  "e>egant  scholar,"  be- 
came quite  easy  and  familiar  to  mo,  but  I  have  never 
attained  a  colloquial  mastery  over  the  language.  I  can 
talk,  to  be  sure,  with  tlie  most  incorrect  fluency,  and  I  can 
make  mj'self  understood — at  all  events  by  Italians,  whose 
quick,  sympathetic  apprehension  of  one's  meaning,  and 
courteous  readiness  to  assist  a  foreigner  in  any  linguistic 
straits,  are  deserving  of  grateful  recognition  from  all  of  us 
who,  however  involuntarily,  maltreat  their  beautiful  lan- 
guage. 

But  the  colloquial  use  of  a  language  must  be  acquired 
when  the  organs  are  young  and  lissom.  I  began  too  late. 
And, besides,  I  have  labored  under  the  great  disadvantage 
that  my  deafness  prevents  me  from  sharing  in  the  hourly 
lessons  which  those  who  hear  all  that  is  croinfr  on  around 
them  profit  by. 

Besides  the  above-mentioned  historical  works,  I  wrote 
well-nigh  a  score,  I  think,  of  novels,  which  also  had  no 
great,  but  a  fair,  share  of  success.  The  majority  of  them 
are  on  Italian  subjects  ;  and  these,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to 
say  so,  are  good.  Tlie  pictures  they  give  of  Italian  men 
and  womt'ii,  and  things  and  habits,  are  true,  vivid,  and  ac- 
curate, 'i'hosc  which  I  wrote  on  English  subjects  are  un- 
questionably bad.  I  had  been  living  the  best  part  of  a 
lifetime  out  of  Eiiglan<l;  I  knew  but  little  comparatively 
of  English  life,  and  I  hail  no  business  to  meddle  with  such 
subjects.  But,  besides  all  this,  I  was  always  writing  in 
periodical  publications  of  all  sorts,  ?]nglish  antl  American, 
to  such  an  ivtmt   that   T  >-hiiiiI.l    think   the  bulk  of  it,  if 


420  WHAT    I   REMEMBER. 

brought  together,  would  exceed  that  of  all  the  many  vol- 
umes I  am  answerable  for.  No,  my  life  in  that  Castle 
of  Indolence — Italy — Avas  not  vl  far-niente  one. 

We  were  great  at  picnics  in  those  Florence  days.  Per- 
haps the  most  favorite  place  of  all  for  such  parties  was 
Pratolino,  a  park  belonging  to  the  grand  duke,  about 
seven  miles  from  Florence,  on  the  Bologna  road.  These 
seven  miles  wave  almost  all  more  or  less  uphill, and  when 
the  high  ground  on  which  the  park  is  situated  has  been 
reached,  there  is  a  magnificent  view  over  the  Val  d' Arno, 
its  thousand  villas,  and  Florence,  with  its  circle  of  sur- 
rounding hills. 

There  was  once  a  grand-ducal  residence  there,  which 
was  famous  in  the  later  Medicean  days  for  the  multiplic- 
ity and  ingenuity  of  its  water-Avorks.  All  kinds  of  sur- 
prises, picturesque  and  grotesque  effects,  and  practical 
jokes,  had  been  prepared  by  the  ingenious  but  somewhat 
childish  skill  of  the  architect.  Turning  the  handle  of  a 
door  would  produce  a  shower-bath,  sofas  would  become 
suddenly  boats  surrounded  by  water,  and  such-like  more 
or  less  disagreeable  surprises  to  visitors,  who  were  new  to 
the  specialties  of  the  place.  But  all  this  practical  joking 
was  at  length  fatal  to  the  scene  of  it.  The  pipes  and 
conduits  got  out  of  order,  and  eventually  so  ruined  the 
edifice  that  it  had  to  be  taken  down,  and  has  never  been 
replaced. 

But  the  principal  object  of  attraction — besides  the  view, 
the  charming  green  turf  for  dining  on,  the  facility  for  get- 
ting hot  water,  plates,  glasses,  etc.,  from  a  gardener's  house, 
and  a  large  hall  in  the  same,  good  for  dancing — was  the 
singular  colossal  figure,  representing  "  The  Apennine," 
said  to  have  been  designed  by  Michael  Angelo.  One  used 
to  clamber  up  inside  this  figure,  which  sits  in  a  half  crouch- 
ing attitude,  and  reach  on  the  top  of  the  head  a  platform, 
on  which  four  or  five  persons  could  stand  and  admire  the 
matchless  view. 

About  three  miles  farther,  still  always  ascending  the 
slope  of  the  Apennine,  is  a  Servite  monastery  which  is  the 
cradle  and  mother  establishment  of  the  order.  Sometimes 
we  used  to  extend  our  rambles  thither.     The  brethren  had 


REMINISCENCES   AT   FLORENCE.  421 

the  reputation,  I  remember,  of  possessing  a  large  and  val- 
uable collection  of  prints.  They  were  not  very  willing  to 
exhibit  it ;  but  I  did  once  succeed  in  examining  it,  and,  as 
I  remember,  found  that  it  contained  nothing  much  worth 
looking  at. 

A  much  more  favorite  amusement  of  mine  was  a  picnic 
arranged  to  last  for  two  or  three  days,  and  intended  to  em- 
brace objects  farther  afield.  Vallorabrosa  was  a  favorite 
and  admirably  well-selected  locality  for  this  purpose.  And 
many  a  day  and  moonlight  night  never  to  be  forgotten 
have  I  spent  there.  Sometimes  we  pushed  our  expeditions 
to  the  more  distant  convents — or  "  sanctuaries,"  as  they 
were  called — of  Camaldoli  and  La  Vernia.  And  of  one 
very  memorable  excursion  to  these  two  })laces  I  shall  have 
to  speak  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

Meantime  those  dull  mutterings  as  of  distant  thunder, 
which  Signor  Albcri  had,  as  mentioned  at  a  former  page, 
first  signalized  to  me,  were  gradually  growing  into  a  roar 
which  was  attracting  the  attention  and  lively  interest  of 
all  Europe. 

Of  the  steady  increase  in  the  volume  of  this  roar,  and 
of  the  results  in  which  it  eventuated,  I  need  sav  little 
here,  for  I  have  already  said  enough  in  a  volume  entitled 
"Tuscany  in  1849  and  in  1859."  But  I  may  jot  down  a 
few  recollections  of  the  culminating  day  of  the  Florentine 
revolution. 

I  hail  been  out  from  an  early  hour  of  that  morning,  and 
had  assisted  at  sundry  street  discussions  of  the  question, 
What  would  the  troops  do?  Such  troops  as  were  in  Flor- 
ence were  mainly  lodged  in  the  forts,  the  Fortezza  da 
liasso,  which  I  liave  had  occasion  to  mention  in  a  former 
chapter,  and  the  other  situated  on  the  high  ground  lieyond 
tlie  J](»l)oli  Ciardens,  and  therefore  immcdiati'ly  above  the 
I'itti  Palace.  My  house  at  the  corner  of  the  large  scpiare, 
now  the  Piazza  dclT  Tndipondenza,  was  almost  immediately 
under  the  walls  and  the  guns  of  the  Fortezza  da  l>asso  ; 
but  I  felt  sure  that  the  troops  would  simply  do  nothing; 
might  very  possibly  fraternize  with  tlie  jteople,  but  would 
in  no  case  burn  a  car(ri<lgc  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the 
grand  iluke  t)n  his  thn.iie. 


422  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

A  short,  wide  street  runs  in  a  straight  line  from  the 
middle  of  one  side  of  the  Piazza  to  the  fort ;  and  a  consid- 
erable crowd  of  people,  at  about  ten  o'clock,  I  think,  be- 
gan to  advance  slowly  up  this  street  towards  the  foftesza, 
and  I  went  with  them.  High  above  our  heads,  on  the 
turf-covered  top  of  the  lofty  wall,  there  were  a  good  num- 
ber, perhaps  thirty  or  forty  soldiers,  not  drawn  up  in  line, 
but  apparently  merely  lounging,  and  enjoying  the  air  and 
sunshine.  They  had,  I  think  all  of  them,  their  muskets 
in  their  hands,  but  held  them  idly  and  with  apparently  no 
thought  whatever  of  using  them.  I  felt  confirmed  in  my 
opinion  that  they  had  no  intention  of  doing  so. 

Arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  fortress  wall,  the  foremost  of 
the  people  began  calling  out  to  the  soldiers,  '' Ahhasso 
r Austria!  Siete  per  Italia  o  per  V Austria  .?"  I  did  not 
—  and  it  is  significant  —  hear  any  cries  of  '■'■  Abhasso  il 
Gran  DucaV  The  soldiers,  as  far  as  I  could  see  at  that 
distance,  appeared  to  be  lazily  laughing  at  the  people. 
One  man  called  out,  "■  Ecco  un  bel  inuro  per  fracassare  il 
cap)o  controP'' — "That  is  an  excellent  wall  to  break  your 
heads  against !"  It  was  very  plain  that  they  had  no  in- 
tention of  making  any  hostile  demonstration  against  the 
crowd.  At  the  same  time  there  was  no  sort  of  manifesta- 
tion of  any  inclination  to  fraternize  with  the  revolution- 
ists. They  were  siraj)ly  waiting  to  see  how  matters  would 
go;  and,  under  the  circumstances,  they  can  hardly  be  se- 
verely blamed  for  doing  so.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  whichever  w^ay  things  might  go,  their  view  of  the 
matter  would  be  strongly  influenced  by  the  very  decided 
opinion  that  that  course  would  be  best  which  should  not 
imply  the  necessity  for  doing  anything.  I  think  that  the 
feeling  generally  in  "  the  army,"  if  such  it  could  be  called, 
was  on  the  whole  kindly  to  the  grand  duke,  but  not  to  the 
extent  of  being  Avilling  to  fight  anybody,  least  of  all  the 
Florentines,  in  his  defence  ! 

How  matters  did  go  it  is  not  necessary  to  tell  here.  If 
ever  there  was  a  revolution  "made  with  rose-water,"  it 
was  the  revolution  which  deposed  the  poor  gran  ciuco.  I 
don't  think  it  cost  any  human  being  in  all  Florence  a 
scratch  or  a  bloody  nose.     It  cost  an  enormous  amount  of 


REMINISCENCES  AT   FLORENCE.  423 

talking  and  screaming,  but  nothing  else.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  fair  to  remember  that  the  popular  leaders  could 
not  be  sure  that  matters  might  not  have  taken  another 
turn,  and  that  it  niiyht  have  gone  hard  with  some  of  them. 
In  any  case,  however,  it  would  not  have  gone  very  hard 
with  any  of  them.  Probably  exile  would  have  been  the 
worst  fate  meted  out  to  them.  It  is  true  that  exile  from 
Tuscany  just  then  would  have  been  attended  by  a  similar 
difficulty  to  that  which  caused  the  old  Scotch  lady,  when 
urged  to  run  during  an  earthquake,  to  reph"",  "Ay,  but 
whar  wull  I  nm  to  ?" 

I  do  not  think  there  was  anv  bitter,  or  much  even  un- 
kind,  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  citizens  towards  the  sover- 
eign against  whom  they  rebelled.  If  an}'  fact  or  circum- 
stance could  be  found  which  was  calculated  to  hold  him 
up  to  ridicule  it  was  eagerly  laid  hold  of,  but  there  was 
no  fiercer  feeling. 

A  report  was  spread  during  the  days  that  immediately 
followed  the  duke's  departure  that  orders  had  been  given 
to  the  officers  in  the  upper  fortress  to  turn  their  cannon 
on  the  city  at  the  first  sign  of  rising.  Such  reports  were 
very  Acceptable  to  those  who,  for  political  purposes,  would 
fain  have  seen  somewhat  of  stronger  feeling  against  the 
duke.  I  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  such  orders  had 
been  given,  but  I  have  still  stronger  reasons  for  doubting 
that  they  were  ever  given  by  the  grand  duke.  And  I  am 
surest  of  all  that,  let  them  have  been  given  by  whom  they 
may,  there  was  not  the  smallest  chance  of  their  being 
obeved.  As  for  the  duke  himself,  I  am  very  sure  that  he 
would  liave  given  or  even  done  much  to  prevent  any  such 
catastrophe. 

But  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  and  most  singular 
scene  of  all  that  rose-water  revolution  was  the  duke's  de- 
jiarlurc  from  his  capital  and  his  duchy.  Other  sovereigns 
in  similar  jilight  have  hidden  themselves,  travestied  them- 
selves, liad  hairbreadth  escapes,  or  have  not  escaped  at  all. 
In  Tuscany  the  falU-n  ruler  went  forth  in  his  own  carriage, 
with  «»ne  other  following  it,  both  ratlu-r  heavily  laden  witli 
luggage.  Tlie  San  (Jallo  gate  is  that  by  which  the  hearse 
that  conveys  the  day's  dead  to  the  cemetery  on  the  slope 


424  WHAT   1  KEMExMBEK. 

of  the  Apennine  leaves  the  city  every  night.  And  tlic 
duke  passed  amid  the  large  crowd  assembled  at  the  gate 
to  see  him  go,  as  peaceably  as  the  vehicle  conveying  those 
whose  days  in  Florence,  like  his,  were  at  an  end,  went  out 
a  few  hours  later  by  the  same  road. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

LETTERS    FROM    PEARD. GARIBALDI. LETTERS    FROil 

PULSZKY. 

Among  the  very  great  number  of  men  and  women  whom 
I  have  known  during  my  life  in  Italy  —  some  merely  ac- 
quaintances, and  many  whom  I  knew  to  be,  and  a  few, 
alas  !  a  very  few,  whom  I  still  knoAV  to  be  trusty  friends 
— there  were  many  of  whom  the  world  has  lieard,  and 
some  perhaps  of  whom  it  Avould  not  unwillingly  liear 
something  more.  But  time  and  space  are  limited,  and  I 
must  select  as  best  I  may. 

I  have  a  very  pleasant  recollection  of  "  Garibaldi's  Eng- 
lishman," Colonel  Peard.  Peard  had  many  more  qualities 
and  capabilities  than  such  as  are  essential  to  a  soldier  of 
fortune.  The  phrase,  however,  is  perhaps  not  exactly 
that  which  should  be  used  to  characterize  him.  He  had 
qualities  which  the  true  soldier  of  fortune  should  not  pos- 
sess. His  partisanship  was  with  him  in  the  highest  degree 
a  matter  of  conviction  and  conscientious  opinion,  and 
nothinf/  would  have  tempted  him  to  change  his  colors  or 
draw  his  sword  on  the  other  side.  I  am  not  sure,  either, 
whcthi-r  a  larger  amount  of  native  brain  power,  and  (in  a 
much  greater  degree)  a  higher  quality  of  culture,  than  that 
of  the  general  under  whom  it  may  ho  his  fortune  to  serve, 
is  a  good  part  of  the  equipment  of  a  soldier  of  fortune. 
And  Peard's  relation  to  (Taribaldi  very  notably  exempli- 
fied this. 

He  was  a  native  of  Devonshire,  as  was  my  first  wife; 
we  saw  a  good  deal  of  him  in  Florence,  and  I  have  before 
me  a  letter  written  to  her  l)y  him  from  Naples  on  the 
2Hth  of  January,  ISOI,  which  is  interesting  in  more  re- 
spects than  one.  Peard  was  a  man  who  iroidd  have  all 
that  depended  on  liirn  .ship-shaj)e.  And  this  fact,  taken 
in  conjunction  with  the  surroundings  iimicl  uliieli  he  had 


426  WHAT  1   REMEMBER. 

to  do  his  work,  is  abundantly  sufficient  to  justify  the 
growl  he  indulges  in. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Trollopk,"  be  writes,  "  I  am  ashamed  to  think  cither 
of  you  or  of  other  friends  at  Florence ;  it  is  sucli  an  age  since  I  liave  writ- 
ten to  any  of  you.  But  I  have  been  daily,  from  morning  to  niglit,  hard  at 
work  for  weeks.  The  hojtor  of  liaviiig  a  command  is  all  very  well,  but 
the  trouble  and  worry  are  unspeakable.  Besides,  I  had  such  a  set  under 
me  that  it  was  enough  to  rile  the  sweetest-tempered  man.  Volimtecrs 
may  be  very  well  in  their  way.  I  doubt  not  their  efficiency  in  repelling 
an  attack  in  their  own  country,  but  defend  me  from  ever  again  command- 
ing a  brigade  of  English  volunteers  in  a  foreign  country.  As  to  the  offi- 
cers, many  were  most  mutinous,  and  some  something  worse.  Thank 
goodness,  the  brigade  is  at  an  end.  All  I  now  wait  for  is  the  settlement 
of  the  accounts.  If  I  can  get  away  by  the  second  week  in  February  I  at 
present  think  of  taking  a  run  as  far  as  Cairo,  then  crossing  to  Jerusalem, 
and  back  by  Jaffa,  Beyrout,  Smyrna,  and  Athens  to  Italy,  when  I  shall 
once  more  hope  to  see  you  and  yours. 

"Politics  do  not  look  well  in  Southern  Italy,  I  fear.  The  Mazziiii.-^ts 
have  been  most  active,  and  have  got  up  a  rather  strong  feeling  against 
Cavour  and  what  they  think  the  peace  party.  Now  Italy  must  have  a  lit- 
tle rest  for  organization,  civil  as  well  as  militar}'.  They  do  not  give  the 
government  time  to  do  or  even  propose  good  measures  for  the  improve- 
ment of  the  country.  No  sooner  are  one  set  of  ministers  installed  than 
intrigues  are  on  foot  to  upset  them.  I  firmly  believe  that  the  only  hope  for 
Southern  Italy  and  Sicily  is  in  a  strong  military  government.  These  districts 
must  be  treated  as  coixjuered  jjroviuce.i,  and  the  people  educated  and  taught 
habits  of  industry,  whether  they  like  it  or  not.  The  country  is  at  present 
in  a  state  of  barbarism,  and  must  be  saved  from  that.  All  that  those  who 
are  supposed  to  be  educated  seem  to  think  about  is  how  they  can  get  a  few 
dollars  out  of  government.  [I  fear  the  honest  Englishman  would  find 
that  those  supposed  to  be  educated  in  tlio.<c  provinces  are  as  much  in  a 
state  of  barbarism  in  the  matters  that  offended  him  as  ever.]  I  never 
saw  such  a  set  of  harpies  in  my  life.  One  had  the  assurance  to  come  to 
me  a  few  days  since,  asking  if  I  could  not  take  him  on  the  strength  of  the 
brigade,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  get  six  months'  pay  out  of  the  government. 
As  to  peculation,  read  'Gil  Bias,'  and  that  will  give  you  a  faint  sketch  of 
the  customs  and  habits  of  all  impiiyati  [civil  servants]  in  this  part  of  Ita- 
ly. I  do  not  believe  that  the  Southern  Italians,  taken  as  a  body,  know 
what  honesty  is.  [All  that  he  says  is  true  to  the  present  day.  But  the  dis- 
tinction which  he  makes  between  the  Southern  Italians  and  those  of  the 
other  provinces  is  most  just,  and  must  be  remembered.]  But  that  is  the 
fault  of  the  horrid  system  of  tyranny  under  which  they  have  so  long  lived. 
I  do  not  say  that  the  old  system  must  be  reformed ;  it  must  be  totally 
changed.  Solomon  might  make  laws,  but  so  corrupt  are  all  the  impiegati 
that  I  doubt  if  he  could  get  them  carried  out.  Poor  Garibaldi  is  made  a 
tool  of  by  a  set  of  designing  intriguers,  who  will  sacrifice  him  at  any  mo- 
ment.    He  is  too  honest  to  see  or  believe  of  dishonesty  in  others.    He  has 


LETTERS  FROM  PEARD.  407 

no  judgment  of  character.  He  has  been  surrounded  by  a  set  of  blacklegs 
and  swindlers,  many  among  them,  I  regret  to  say,  English.  How  I  look 
forward  to  seeing  you  all  again !     Till  we  meet,  believe  me, 

"  Most  truly  yours,  Gio.  [sic]  Peard." 

The  last  portion  of  this  letter  is  highly  interesting  and 
historically  well  worth  preserving.  It  is  entirely  and  ac- 
curately true.  And  there  was  no  man  in  existence  more 
fitted  by  native  integrity  and  hatred  of  dishonesty  ou  the 
one  hand,  and  close  intimacy  with  the  subject  of  his  re- 
marks on  the  other,  to  speak  authoritatively  on  the  matter 
than  "  Garibaldi's  Englishman." 

The  following  letter,  written,  as  will  be  seen,  on  the  eve 
of  his  departure  for  the  celebrated  expedition  to  Sicily,  is 
also  interesting.     It  is  dated  Genoa. 

"Dear  Mrs.  Trollope, — I  have  been  thinking  over  your  observations 
about  terno.  I  don't  give  up  my  translation  ;  but  would  it  not  be  literal 
enough  to  translate  it,  '  the  bravest  three  colors  ?' 

[This  refers  to  the  rendering  of  the  lottery  phrase  (erno  in  a  translation 
by  my  wife  of  the  stornello  of  Dall'  Ongaro  previously  mentioned.  In  the 
Italian  lottery,  ninety  numbers,  1-90,  are  always  put  into  the  wheel.  Five 
only  of  these  are  drawn  out.  The  player  bets  that  a  number  named  by  him 
shall  be  one  of  these  (semplice  estratio);  or  that  it  shall  be  the  first  drawn 
(estralto  determinalo) ;  or  that  two  numbers  named  by  him  shall  be  two  of 
the  five  drawn  (umfio) ;  or  that  throe  so  named  shall  be  drawn  {ta-no).  It 
will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  winner  of  an  cstratlo  Jetenninato  ought, 
if  the  play  were  quite  even,  to  receive  ninety  times  his  stake.  But,  in 
fact,  such  a  player  would  receive  only  seventy-five  times  his  stake,  the 
profit  of  the  government  consisting  of  this  pull  of  fifteen  per  ninety 
against  the  player.  Of  course,  what  he  ought  to  receive  in  any  of  the 
other  cases  is  easily  (not  by  me,  but  by  experts)  calculable.  It  will  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  difliculty  of  translating  the  phrase  in  Dall'  Oiigara's  little 
poem,  BO  as  to  lie  intelligible  to  English  readers,  was  considerable.  The 
letter  then  proceeds]  : 

"  I  did  not  start,  you  will  see,  direct  from  Livorno  [Leghorn],  for  Medici 
wrote  me  to  join  him  here.  Moreover,  the  steamer  by  which  I  expected  to 
have  gone  did  not  make  the  trip,  but  was  sent  back  to  this  city.  I  will 
worry  you  with  a  letter  when  anything  stirring  occurs.  Wc  sail  to-night. 
Part  went  off  last  evening  —  fifteen  bundled.  We  got  in  three  steamers, 
and  bhall  overtake  the  others. 

"  With  kind  regards  to  all  friemls,  believe  me, 

"Yours  very  faithfully,  .Iuiin   rii.vnn." 

The  remarks  (-(jntained  in  the  former  of  tlic  two  k'tlcrs 
here  transcribed  seem  to  make  this  a  proper  place  for  re- 
cording "what  I  remember"  of  Garibaldi. 


428  WHAT   1  REMEMBER. 

My  first  acquaintance  with  him  was  through  my  very 
old,  and  very  higlily  valued,  loved,  and  esteemed  friend, 
Jessie  White  Mario.  The  Garibaldi  culte  has  been  M'itli 
her  truly  and  literally  the  object  (apart  from  her  devoted 
love  for  her  husband,  an  equally  ardent  worshipper  at  the 
same  shrine)  for  which  she  has  lived,  and  for  which  she 
has  again  and  again  affronted  death.  For  she  accompa- 
nied him  in  all  his  Italian  campaigns  as  a  hospital  nurse, 
and  on  many  occasions  rendered  her  inestimable  services 
in  that  capacity  under  fire.  If  Peard  has  been  called 
"  Garibaldi's  Englishman,"  truly  Jessie  White  Mai-io  de- 
serves yet  more  emphatically  the  title  of  "  Garibaldi's 
Englishwoman."  She  has  published  a  large  life  of  Gari- 
baldi, which  is  far  and  away  the  best  and  most  trust- 
worthy account  of  the  man  and  his  wonderful  works.  She 
is  not  blind  to  the  spots  on  the  sun  of  her  adoration,  nor 
does  she  seek  to  conceal  the  fact  that  there  were  such 
spots,  but  she  is  a  true  and  loyal  worshipper  all  the  same. 

Her  husband,  Alberto  Mario,  was — alas  !  that  I  should 
write  so  ;  for  no  Indian  Avife's  life  was  ever  more  ended 
by  her  suttee  than  Jessie  Mario's  life  has  practically  been 
ended  by  her  husband's  untimely  death  ! — among  the,  I 
fear,  few  exceptions  to  Peard's  remarks  on  the  men  who 
were  around  Garibaldi.  He  was  not  only  a  man  of  large 
literary  culture,  a  brave  soldier,  an  acute  politician,  a  for- 
midable political  adversary,  and  a  man  of  perfect  and  in- 
corruptible integrity,  but  he  would  have  been  considered 
in  any  country  and  in  any  society  in  Europe  a  very  per- 
fect gentleman.  He  was  in  political  opinion  a  consistent 
and  fearlessly  outspoken  Republican.  He  and  I  therefore 
difiered  toto  coelo.  But  our  differences  never  diminished 
our,  I  trust,  mutual  esteem,  nor  our  friendly  intercourse. 
But  he  was  a  hovn  frondeur.  He  edited  during  his  latter 
years  a  newspaper  at  Rome,  which  was  a  thorn  in  the  side 
of  the  authorities.  I  remember  his  being  prosecuted  and 
condemned  for  persistently  speaking  of  the  pope  in  his 
paper  as  "  Signor  Pecci."  He  was  sentenced  to  imprison- 
ment. But  all  the  government  wanted  was  his  condemna- 
tion ;  and  he  was  never  incarcerated.  But  he  used  to  go 
daily  to  the  prison  and  demand  the  execution  of  his  sen- 


GARIBALDI.  429 

tence.     The  jailer  used  to  shut  the  door  in  his  face,  and 
he  narrated  the  result  of  his  visit  in  the  next  day's  paper. 

It  was  as  Jessie  Mario's  friend,  then,  that  I  first  knew 
Garibaldi. 

One  morning  at  the  villa  I  then  possessed,  at  Ricorboli, 
close  to  Florence,  a  maid-servant  came  flying  into  the 
room,  where  I  was  still  in  bed  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, crying  out  in  the  utmost  excitement,  "C"^  il  Generate! 
c'h  il  Generale!  E chiede  di  lei,  signore!'''' — "Here's  the 
General !  here's  the  General  !  And  he  is  asking  for  you, 
sir  I"  She  spoke  as  if  there  was  but  one  general  in  all 
the  world.  But  there  was  hardly  any  room  in  Florence 
at  that  time  where  her  words  would  not  have  been  under- 
stood as  well  as  I  understood  them. 

I  jumped  out  of  bed,  got  into  a  dressing-gown,  and  ran 
out  to  where  the  "  General "  was  on  the  lawn  before  the 
door,  just  as  I  was,  and  hardly  more  than  half  awake. 
There  he  was,  all  alone.  But  if  there  had  been  a  dozen 
other  men  around  him,  I  should  have  had  no  ditliculty  in 
recognizing  him.  There  was  the  figure  as  well  known  to 
every  Italian  from  Turin  to  Syracuse  as  that  of  his  own 
father — the  light-gray  trousers,  the  little  foragiug-cap,  the 
red  shirt,  the  bandana  handkerchief  loosely  thrown  over 
his  shoulders  and  round  his  neck. 

Prints,  photographs,  portraits  of  all  kinds,  have  made 
the  Engli>h  ])ublic  scarcely  less  familiar  than  the  Italian 
with  the  physiognomy  of  Giuse])pe  Garibaldi.  But  no 
photograph,  of  course,  and  no  j)ainting  which  I  have  ever 
seen,  gives  certain  i>cculiarilies  of  that  striking  head  and 
face,  as  I  first  saw  it,  somewhere  about  twenty  years  ago. 

The  pose  of  the  liead,  and  the  general  arrangement  and 
color  of  the  tawny  hair  (at  that  time  but  slightly  grizzled), 
justificil  the  epithet  "lionine"  so  often  applied  to  him. 
His  l)eard  and  mustache  were  of  the  same  hue,  and  his 
skin  was  probably  fair  by  nature,  but  it  had  been  tanned 
by  w  inil  and  weatlur.  The  dear  blue  eyes  were  sur- 
rt)unded  by  a  network  of  fine  lines,  Tiiis  had  no  trace  or 
suggestittn  f)f  ciniutnr/,  as  is  often  the  easi>  with  wrinkles 
rf»un<l  the  setting  of  the  eyes,  l)Ut  was  obviously  the  result 
of  habitual  contraction  of  the  muscles  in  ga/.ing  at  very 


430  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

distant  objects.  In  short,  Garibaldi's  eyes,  both  in  this 
respect  and  in  respect  of  a  certain  steadfast,  far-away  look 
in  them,  were  the  eyes  of  a  sailor.  Seamanship,  as  is 
generally  known,  was  his  first  profession.  Another  phys- 
ical peculiarity  of  his  which  I  do  not  remember  to  have 
seen  noticed  in  print  was  a  remarkably  beautiful  voice. 
It  was  fine  in  quality  and  of  great  range  ;  sweet,  yet 
raaidy,  and  Avith  a  suggestion  of  stored-up  jaower  which 
harmonized  with  the  man.  It  seemed  to  belong,  too,  to 
the  benevolence  which  was  the  habitual  expression  of  his 
face  when  in  repose. 

"  Jessie  [pronounced  J^ssee]  told  me  I  should  find  you 
up  ;  but  you  are  not  so  early  as  I  am  !"  was  his  salutation. 
I  said  he  had  dans  le  temps  been  beforehand  with  others 
as  well  as  with  me.  At  which  he  laughed,  not,  I  thought, 
ill  pleased.  And  then  we  talked — about  Italy  of  course. 
One  subject  of  his  talk  I  specially  remember,  because  it 
gave  rise  to  a  little  discussion,  and  in  a  great  degree  gave 
me  the  measure  of  the  man. 

"As  for  the  priests,"  said  he,  "  they  ought  all  to  be  put 
to  death,  without  exception  and  witliout  delay." 

"  Rather  a  strong  measure,"  I  ventured  to  say. 

"  Not  a  bit  too  strong,  not  a  bit,"  he  rejoined,  warmly. 
"Do  we  not  put  assassins  to  death  ?  And  is  not  the  man 
who  murders  your  soul  worse  than  the  man  who  only  kills 
your  body?" 

I  attempted  to  say  that  the  difference  of  the  two  cases 
lay  in  the  fact  that  as  to  the  killing  of  the  body  there  was 
no  doubt  about  the  matter,  whereas  mankind  differed  very 
widely  as  to  the  killing  of  the  soul  ;  and  that  as  long  as 
it  remained  a  moot  point  whether  priests  did  so  or  not,  it 
would  hardly  be  practicable  or  even  politic  to  adopt  the 
measure  he  suggested. 

But  he  would  not  listen  to  me — only  repcat-ed  with  in- 
creasing excitement  that  no  good  could  come  to  humanity 
till  all  priests  were  destroyed. 

Then  we  talked  about  the  Marios,  of  both  of  whom  he 
spoke  with  the  greatest  affection  ;  and  of  the  prospects  of 
"going  to  Rome,"  which,  of  course,  he  considered  the  sim- 
plest and  easiest  thing  possible. 


GARIBALDI.  431 

I  saw  Garibaldi  on  many  subsequent  occasions,  but  never 
again  ttte-d-tS(e,  or  a  quattro  occhi,  as  the  Italians  more 
significantly  phrase  it.  The  last  time  I  ever  saw  him  was 
under  melancholy  circumstances  enough,  though  the  occa- 
sion professed  to  be  one  of  rejoicing.  It  was  at  the  great 
gathering  at  Palermo  for  celebrating  the  anniversary  of 
the  Sicilian  Vespers.  Of  course  such  a  celebration  would 
have  brought  Garibaldi  to  partake  in  it,  wherever  he 
might  have  been,  short  of  in  his  grave.  And  truly  he 
was  then  very  near  that.  It  was  a  melancholy  business. 
He  was  brouijht  from  the  steamer  to  his  bed  in  the  hotel 
on  a  litter  through  the  streets  lined  by  the  thousands  who 
had  gathered  to  see  him,  but  who  had  been  warned  that 
his  condition  was  such  that  the  excitement  occasioned  by 
any  shouting  would  be  perilous  to  him.  Amid  dead  silence 
his  litter  passed  through  the  crowds  who  were  longing  to 
welcome  him  to  the  scene  of  his  old  triumphs.  Truly  it 
was  more  like  a  funeral  procession  than  one  of  rejoicing. 

It  was  very  shortly  before  his  death,  which  many  peo- 
ple thought  had  been  accelerated  by  that  last  eflFort  to 
make  his  boundless  popularity  available  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  Radicalism. 

Peard's  words  reveal  with  exactitude  the  deficiency 
which  lay  at  the  root  of  all  the  blunders,  follies,  and  im- 
prudences which  rendered  his  career  less  largely  beneficent 
for  Italy  than  it  might  have  been.  "  He  had  no  judgment 
of  character,"  and  was  too  honest  to  l)i'lieve  in  knavery. 
It  must  be  added  that  he  was  too  little  intelligent  to  de- 
tect it,  or  to  estimate  the  consequences  of  it.  Of  any  large 
views  of  social  life,  or  of  the  means  by  which,  and  the  ob- 
jects for  whi<-h,  men  should  be  governed,  he  was  as  inno- 
cent as  a  l>;»by.  In  a  word,  he  was  not  an  intellectual 
man.  All  tin-  high  qualities  which  jilaced  him  on  the 
jiinnade  he  occu]>ied  were  (jualitics  of  the  heart  and  not 
of  the  head.  They  availed  with  a<linirable  success  to  fit 
him  for  exercising  a  supreme  iniluen(;u  over  nun,  espe- 
cially young  men,  in  the  field,  and  for  all  the  duties  of  a 
guerilla  leader.  Tln-y  would  not  have  sufiiced  to  make 
him  a  great  crunmander  of  arujies  ;  and  did  still  less  fit 
him  for  becoming  a  j»olitical  leader. 


432  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Whom  next  shall  I  present  to  the  reader  from  the  por- 
trait-gallery of  ni}^  reminiscences? 

Come  forward,  Franz  Pulszky,  most  genial,  most  large- 
hearted  of  philosophers  and  friends  ! — I  can't  say  "guides," 
for  though  he  was  both  the  first,  he  was  not  the  last,  dif- 
fering widely  as  we  did  upon — perhaps  not  most,  but  at 
all  events — many  large  subjects. 

I  had  known  the  lady  whom  Pulszkj^  married  in  Vienna, 
many  years  previously,  and  long  before  he  knew  her.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  that  highly  cultivated  Jewish  family 
of  whom  I  have  spoken  before.  When  I  first  knew  her 
she  was  as  pretty  and  charming  a  young  girl  as  could  be 
imagined.  She  was  possessed  then  of  all  the  accomplish- 
ments that  can  adorn  a  girl  at  that  period  of  life.  Later 
on  she  showed  that  she  was  gifted  with  sense,  knowledge, 
energy,  firmness,  courage,  and  caract^re  in  a  degree  very 
uncommon.  Since  leaving  Vienna  I  had  neither  seen  nor 
heard  more  of  her,  till  she  came  to  live  with  her  husband 
and  family  of  children  in  Florence.  But  our  old  acquaint- 
anceship was  readily  and  naturally  renewed,  and  his  villa 
near  the  city  became  one  of  the  houses  I  best  loved  to 
frequent.  She  had  at  that  time,  and  even  well-nigh  I 
take  it  in  those  old  days  at  Vienna,  abandoned  all  seem- 
ing  of  conformity  to  the  practices  of  the  faith  she  was 
born  in. 

I  used  to  say  of  Pulszky  that  he  was  like  a  barrel  full 
to  the  bung  with  generous  liquor,  which  flowed  in  a  full 
stream,  stick  the  spigot  in  Avhere  you  would.  He  was — is, 
I  am  happy  to  say  is  the  proper  tense  in  his  case — a  most 
many-sided  man.  His  talk  on  artistic  subjects,  mainly  his- 
torical and  biographical,  was  abundant  and  most  amusing. 
His  antiquarian  knowledge  was  large.  His  ethnographical 
learning,  theories,  and  speculations  were  always  interest- 
ing and  often  most  suggestive.  Years  had,  I  think,  put 
some  water  in  the  wine  of  his  political  ideas,  but  not 
enough  to  prevent  differences  between  us  on  such  sub- 
jects. He  was  withal — there  again  I  mean  "is,"  for  I  am 
sure  that  years  and  the  air  of  his  beloved  Pesth  cannot 
have  put  any  water  in  tJnit  generous  and  genial  wine — a 
fellow  of  infinite  jest,  and  full  of  humor ;  in  a  word,  one 


LETTERS  FROM   PULSZKY.  433 

of  the  fullest  and  most  delightful  companions  I  have  ever 
known.  He  talked  English  with  no  further  accent  than 
served  to  add  a  raciness  to  the  flavor  of  his  conversation ; 
and  every  morning  of  one  fixed  day  in  the  week  he  used 
to  come  to  Ricorboli  for  what  he  called  a  tobacco  parlia- 
ment, 

I  used  frequently  to  spend  the  evening  at  his  villa, 
where  one  met  a  somewhat  extraordinary  cosmopolitan 
gathering.  Generally  we  had  some  good  music  ;  for  Ma- 
dame Pulszky  was — unhajipily  in  her  case  tbe  past  tense 
is  needed — a  very  perfect  musician.  Among  other  people 
more  or  less  off  the  world's  beaten  track  I  used  to  meet 
there  a  very  extraordinary  Russian,  who  had  accomplished 
the  rare  feat  of  escaping  from  Siberia.  He  was  a  Nihilist 
of  the  most  uncompromising  type  ;  a  huge,  shaggy  man, 
with  an  unkempt  head  and  chest  like  those  of  a  bear  ;  and 
by  bis  side — more  or  less — there  was  a  i>rctty,  jyetite,  dainty 
little  young  wife — beauty  and  the  beast,  if  ever  that  sto- 
ried couple  were  seen  in  the  flesh. 

Many  years  afterwards  when  I  and  my  wife  sa^v  Pulszky 
at  Pesth,  and  were  talking  of  old  times,  he  reminded  me 
of  this  person  ;  and  on  my  doubting  that  any  man  in  his 
senses  could  believe  in  the  practicability  of  the  extreme 
Nihilist  theories,  he  instanced  our  old  acquaintance,  say- 
ing, "  Yes,  there  is  a  man  who  in  his  very  inmost  con- 
science believes  that  no  good  of  an}'  sort  can  be  achieved 
for  humanity  till  the  sponge  shall  have  been  i)assed  over 
all  that  men  have  instituted  and  done,  and  a  perfect  tabula 
rasa  has  been  substituted  for  it." 

I  have  many  letters  from  Pulszky,  written  most  of  them 
after  liis  return  to  Pesth,  and  for  the  most  part  too  much 
occupied  with  the  persons  and  ])olitics  of  that  recent  day 
to  be  fit  for  publication. 

Here  is  one,  written  before  he  k-ft  Florence,  which  may 

be  given : 

"  Villa  PKTROvicn. 

"Mr  DKAH  Trollope, — I  nm  ju.^t  returned  from  a  lonp  excursion  with 
Boxiill  to  Arczzo,  Corton.i,  Borf^o  .'^an  Sopolcro,  Citti  <ii  Castello,  Perupia, 
anil  Assirti.  Wo  were  then-  for  a  weelt,  atnl  cnjovoi  it  amazingly.  I  am 
«orry  to  gay  that  I  am  not  now  ahle  to  join  your  party  to  Camnldoii,  since 
I  muBt  see  Garibaldi,  and  do  not  know  as  yet  what  I  shall  do  when  the  war 
19 


434  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

begins,  which  might  happen  during  your  excursion.  I  hope  you  will  drink 
a  glass  of  water  to  my  remembrance  at  I^a  Vernia  from  the  miraculous 
well,  called  from  the  rocks  by  my  patron  saint,  St.  Francis  of  Assist.  I 
shall  come  to  you  on  Sunday,  and  will  tell  you  more  about  him.  I  studied 
him  at  Assisi.  Yours  sincerely,  Fr.  Pulszky." 

The  following  passages  may  be  given  from  a  long  letter, 
•vrritten  from  Pesth  on  the  27th  of  March,  1869.  It  is  for 
the  most  part  filled  with  remarks  on  the  party  politics  of 
the  hour,  and  persons,  many  of  them  still  on  the  scene  : 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  and  Mr.  Trollope, — You  don't  believe  how  glad  I  was 
to  get  a  token  of  remembrance  from  you.  It  seems  to  me  quite  an  age 
since  I  left  Florence,  and  your  letter  was  like  a  voice  from  a  past  period. 
I  live  here  as  a  stranger ;  you  would  not  recognize  me.  I  talk  nothing  but 
politics  and  business.  There  is  not  a  man  with  whom  I  could  speak  in  the 
way  that  we  did  on  Sundays  at  your  villa.  I  am  of  course  much  with  old 
Deak.  I  often  dine  with  him.  I  know  all  his  anecdotes  and  jokes  by 
heart.  He  likes  it,  if  I  visit  him ;  but  our  conversation  remains  within 
the  narrow  limits  of  party  politics  and  the  topics  of  the  day.  Sometimes 
I  spend  an  evening  with  Baron  Eotvos,  the  minister  of  public  instruction, 
my  old  friend ;  and  there  only  we  get  both  warm  in  remembering  the  days 
of  our  youth,  and  building  chateaux  en  Espagne  for  the  future  of  the  coun- 
try. Eotvos  has  appointed  me  director  of  the  National  Museum,  which 
contains  a  library  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  volumes,  mostly 
Hungarian;  a  very  indifferent  picture-gallery,  with  a  lew  good  pictures 
and  plenty  of  rubbish ;  a  poor  collection  of  antiquities  ;  splendid  medieval 
goldsmith  work ;  arms,  coins,  and  some  miserable  statues ;  a  good  collec- 
tion of  stuffed  birds ;  an  excellent  one  of  butterflies ;  a  celebrated  one  of 
beetles,  and  good  specimens  for  geology  and  mineralogy.  But  all  this  col- 
lection is  badly,  if  at  all,  catalogued;  badly  arranged  ;  and  until  now  we 
have  in  a  great  palace  an  appropriation  of  only  £1200  a  year.  I  shall 
have  much  to  do  there — as  much  as  any  minister  in  his  oflBce,  if  politics 
leave  me  the  necessary  time  for  it." 

Then  follows  a  quantity  of  details  about  the  party  pol- 
itics of  the  day.     And  then  he  continues  : 

"  Such  a  contested  election  with  us  costs  about  £2000  to  £3000.  I 
must  say  I  never  spent  money  with  more  regret  than  this ;  but  I  had  to 
maintain  the  party  interest  and  my  family  influence  in  my  electoral  dis- 
trict. I  have  there  a  fine  old  castle  and  a  splendid  park,  but  I  rarely  go 
to  the  country,  since  I  have  jumped,  as  you  know,  once  more  into  the 
whirlpool  of  politics,  and  can't  get  out  again.  An  agrarian  communistic 
agitation  has  been  initiated,  I  do  not  know  whether  with  or  without  the 

sanction  of  S ,  but  certainly  it  has  spread  rapidly  over  a  great  portion 

of  the  country,  and  I  doubt  whether  government  has  the  energy  for  put- 


LETTERS  FROM  PULSZKY.  435 

ting  that  agitation  down.     It  is  a  very  serious  question,  especially  as  it 
finds  us  engaged  in  many  other  questions  of  the  highest  interest." 

Then  he  gives  an  outline  of  the  position  of  Hungary  in 
relation  to  other  states,  and  then  he  continues  : 

"We  remain  still  in  opposition  with  the  Wallacliians,  or,  as  they  now 
like  to  call  themselves,  Rumanes,  and  we  try  to  maintain  the  peace  with 
Prussia.  And  now  when  we  should  concentrate  all  our  forces  to  meet  tlie 
changes  which  threaten  us,  a  stupid  and  wicked  opposition  divides  the  na- 
tion into  two  hostile  camps  [how  very  singular  and  unexampled  !].  We 
fight  one  another  to  the  great  pleasure  of  Russia  and  Prussia,  who  enjoy 
our  fratricidal  feuds  as  the  Romans  in  the  amphitheatre  enjoyed  the  fights 
of  the  barbarians  in  the  arena. 

"  I  must  beg  your  pardon,  dear  Mrs.  Trollope,  that  I  grow  so  pathetic! 
You  know  it  is  not  my  custom  when  I  am  with  ladies.  But  you  must 
know  likewise  that  I  live  now  outside  of  female  society.  I  do  not  exactly 
know  whether  it  is  my  fault  or  that  of  the  ladies  of  Pesth ;  so  much  is  cer- 
tain that  only  at  Vienna,  where  I  go  from  time  to  time,  I  call  upon  ladies. 
As  to  my  children,  Augustus,  whom  you  scarcely  know,  is  a  volunteer  in 
the  army  according  to  our  law  of  universal  conscription.  Ciiarles  you  may 
have  seen  at  Florence.  I  sent  him  thither  to  visit  his  grandmother. 
[Madame  Walter,  the  mother  of  Madame  Pulszky ;  the  lady  who  had  re- 
ceived us  with  such  pleasant  hospitality  at  Vienna,  and  who  had  come  to 
reside  at  Florence,  where  she  lived  to  a  great  age  much  liked  and  re- 
spected.] Polixena  gets  handsome  and  clever;  little  Garibaldi  is  to  go 
to  school  in  September  next.  I  grow  old,  discontented,  insupportable 
[we  found  him  at  Pesth  many  years  afterwards  no  one  of  the  three  I] ;  a 
journey  to  Greece  and  Italy  wouM  certainly  do  me  immense  good ;  but  I 
fear  I  must  give  up  that  plan  for  the  present  year,  since  after  a  contested 
election  it  is  a  serious  thing  to  spend  money  for  amusement.  In  June  I 
shall  leave  my  present  lo<]ging  and  go  to  the  museum,  which  stands  in  a 
handsome  square  op|)Oiitc  to  tiie  House  of  Parliament.  Excuse  me  for  my 
long,  long  talk ;  and  do  not  forget  your  faithful  friend,  in  pardbm  inji- 
delium,  Fr.  Pulszky." 

On  the  26th  of  March,  1870,  he  writes  a  letter  which 
was  l»ronf,'ht  to  us  hy  his  son,  the  Augustus  mentioned  in 
the  letter  I  have  just  transcribed  : 

"  Mr  DEAR  Mii-H.  AND  Mr.  Trollope, — D.t;iin(<l  by  parliamentary  duties 
and  the  managoment  of  my  own  affair.-*,  I  am  still  unable  to  make  a  trip 
to  Italy  to  vi«it  my  friends,  who  made  the  time  of  my  exile  more  agreeable 
to  mo  than  my  own  country.  Hut  I  wend  in  my  »tfad  a  second  edition  of 
the  oi<l  Pui-<zky,  revised  and  corrected  ad  luniin  iJilphiui,  tliough  I  do  not 
doubt  that  you  prefer  the  old  book,  to  which  you  were  accustomed.  My 
son  Augustus  has  now  fini.shcd  hia  studies,  and  is  D.E.L. — in  a  few  days 


436  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

lieutenant  in  the  reserve,  and  secretary  at  the  ministry  of  finance.  Few 
young  men  begin  their  career  in  a  more  promising  way.  As  to  myself, 
Augustus  will  tell  you  more  than  I  could  write.  I  have  remained  too  long 
in  foreign  countries  to  feel  entirely  at  home  at  Pesth,  where  people  know 
how  to  make  use  of  everybody.  I  am  M.P.,  belong  to  the  finance  commit- 
tee, am  chairman  of  the  committee  of  foreign  affairs  in  the  delegation,  di. 
rector  of  the  museum,  chairman  of  the  philological  section  in  the  academy 
of  sciences,  chairman  of  the  society  of  fine  arts,  vice-president  of  three  in- 
surance offices,  and  member  of  the  council  of  two  railroads.  This  long  list 
proves  sufficiently  that  my  time  is  taken  up  from  early  morning  to  night. 
But  my  health  is  good,  despite  of  the  continuous  wear  and  tear. 

"  During  the  summer  vacations  1  wish  to  go  to  England.  For  ten 
years  I  have  not  been  there ;  and  I  long  to  see  again  a  highly  civilized 
people;  else  I  become  myself  a  barbarian.  Still  I  am  proud  of  my  Hun- 
garians, who  really  struggle  hard,  and  not  without  success,  to  be  more  than 
they  are  now — the  first  of  the  barbarians. 

"  I  have  for  a  long  time  not  heard  of  you.  Of  course,  in  our  correspond- 
ence your  letter  was  the  last,  not  mine.  It  is  my  own  fault.  But  you  must 
excuse  me  still  for  one  year.  Then  I  hope  I  can  put  myself  in  a  more  com- 
fortable position.  For  the  present  I  am  unable  even  to  read  anything  but 
Hungarian  papers,  bills,  reports,  and  business  letters.  I  envy  you  in  your 
elegant  villa,  where  you  enjoy  life  !  I  hope  you  are  both  well,  and  do  not 
forget  your  old  friend,  Fr.  Pulszky. 

"  P.S. — Augustus  will  give  you  a  good  photograph  of  me." 

Here  is  one  other  letter  of  the  13th  June,  1872  : 

"  My  dear  Trollope, — What  a  pity  that  my  time  does  not  allow  me  to 
visit  Italy  at  any  other  season  than  just  in  summer.  We  are  in  the  midst 
of  our  canvass  for  the  general  elections.  My  son  Augustus  is  to  be  re- 
turned for  my  old  place,  Szecseny,  without  opposition  on  the  21st.  On  the 
following  day  we  go  to  the  poll  at  Gycingyos,  a  borough  which  is  to  send 
me  to  Parliament.  It  is  a  contested  election,  therefore  rather  troublesome 
and  expensive,  though  not  too  expensive.  Parliament  meets  with  us  on 
the  first  of  September.  Thus  my  holidays  are  in  Jidy  and  August.  Shall 
we  never  have  the  pleasure  to  see  you  and  Mrs.  Trollope,  to  wiiom  I  beg 
you  to  give  my  best  regards,  here  at  Pesth  ?  Next  year  is  the  great  ex- 
hibition at  Vienna.  Might  it  not  induce  you  to  visit  Vienna,  whence  by 
an  afternoon  trip  you  come  to  Pesth,  where  I  know  you  would  amuse  your- 
selves to  your  hearts'  content. 

"  My  children  are  quite  well.  Charles  is  at  the  university  at  Vienna. 
He  despises  politics,  and  wants  to  become  professor  at  the  University  of 
Pesth  in  ten  or  twelve  years. 

"As  to  me,  I  am  well,  very  busy ;  much  attacked  by  the  opposition  since 
I  am  a  dreaded  party  man.  Besides  I  have  to  reorganize  the  National 
Museum,  from  the  library,  which  has  no  catalogue,  to  the  great  collection 
of  mineralogy  and  plants.  We  bought  the  sjilendid  picture-gallery  of 
Prince  Esterhazy.     This,  too,  is  under  my  direction,  with  a  most  important 


LETTERS   FROM   PULSZKY.  437 

collection  of  prints  and  drawings.     You  see,  therefore,  that  my  time  is 
fully  occupied.  Yours  always,  Fr.  Pulszkt." 

My  wife  and  I  did  subsequently  visit  our  old  friend  at 
Pesth,  and  much  enjoyed  our  brief  stay  there  and  our  chat 
of  old  times.  But  the  work  of  reorganizing  the  museum 
was  not  yet  completed.  I  do  sincerely  hope  that  the  task 
has  been  brought  to  an  end  by  this  time,  and  that  I  may 
either  in  England  or  at  Pesth  once  again  see  Franz  Pulszky 
in  the  flesh ! 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

WALTER    S.  LANDOK. — G.  P.  MARSH. 

According  to  the  pathetic',  and  on  the  face  of  it  accu- 
rately truthful,  account  of  the  close  of  his  life  in  Mr.  For- 
ster's  admirable  and  most  graphic  life  of  him,  I  never 
knew  Landor.  For  the  more  than  octogenarian  old  man 
whom  I  knew  at  Florence  was  clearly  not  the  Landor  whom 
England  had  known  and  admired  for  so  manj^  and  such 
honored  years.  Of  all  the  painful  story  of  the  regrettable 
circumstances  which  caused  him  to  seek  his  last  home  in 
Florence  it  would  be  mere  impertinence  in  me  to  speak, 
after  the  lucid,  and  at  the  same  time  delicately  touched, 
account  of  them  which  his  biographer  has  given. 

I  may  say,  however,  that  even  after  the  many  years  of 
his  absence  from  Florence  there  still  lingered  a  traditional 
remembrance  of  him  —  a  sort  of  Landor  legend  —  which 
made  all  us  Anglo  -Florentines  of  those  days  very  sure 
that  however  blamable  his  conduct  (with  reference  to  the 
very  partially  understood  story  of  the  circumstances  that 
caused  him  to  leave  England)  may  have  been  in  the  eyes 
of  lawyers  or  of  moralists,  the  motives  and  feelings  that 
had  actuated  him  must  have  been  generous  and  chivalrous. 
Had  we  been  told  that,  finding  a  brick  wall  in  a  place 
where  he  thought  no  wall  sliould  be,  he  had  forthwith  pro- 
ceeded to  batter  it  down  with  his  head,  though  it  Avas  not 
his  wall  but  another's,  we  should  have  recognized  in  the 
report  the  Landor  of  the  myths  that  remained  among  us 
concerning  him.  But  that  while  in  any  degree  compos 
metitis  he  had,  under  whatever  provocation,  acted  in  a 
base,  or  cowardh^  or  mean,  or  underhand  manner,  was,  we 
considered,  wholly  impossible. 

There  were  various  legendary  stories  current  in  Florence 
in  those  days  of  his  doings  in  the  olden  times.  Once — so 
said  the  tradition — he  knocked  a  man  down  in  the  street. 


WALTER   S.  LANDOR.  439 

was  brought  before  the  ddegaio,  as  the  police  magistrate 
was  called,  and.  promptly  fined  one  piastre,  value  about 
four  and  sixpence  ;  whereupon  he  threw  a  sequin  (two 
piastres)  down  upon  the  table  and  said  that  it  was  unneces- 
sary to  give  him  any  change,  inasmuch  as  he  purposed 
knockinsT  the  man  down  again  as  soon  as  he  left  the  court. 
We,  ^.>o?<^r^■,  as  regarded  the  date  of  the  story,  were  all  con- 
vinced that  the  true  verdict  in  the  matter  was  that  of  the 
old  Cornish  jury,  "  Sarved  un  right," 

Landor,  as  I  remember  him,  was  a  handsome-looking  old 
man,  very  much  more  so,  I  think,  than  he  could  have  been 
as  a  young  man,  to  judge  by  the  portrait  prefixed  to  Mr. 
Forster's  volumes.  He  was  a  man  of  somewhat  leonine 
aspect  as  regards  the  general  appearance  and  expression 
of  the  head  and  face,  which  accorded  well  with  the  large 
and  massive  build  of  the  figure,  and  to  which  a  superbly 
curling  white  beard  added  not  only  picturesqueness,  but  a 
certain  nobility. 

Landor  had  been  acquainted  with  the  Garrows,  and  with 
my  first  wife  at  Torquay  ;  and  the  acquaintance  was 
quickly  renewed  during  his  last  years  at  Florence.  He 
would  frequently  come  to  our  house  in  the  Piazza  dell' 
Indcpendenza,  and  chat  for  a  while,  generally  after  he  had 
sat  silent  for  some  little  time  ;  for  he  used  to  appear  fa- 
tigued bv  his  walk.  Later,  when  his  walks  and  his  visits 
had  come  to  an  end,  I  used  often  to  visit  him  in  "the  little 
house  under  the  wall  of  the  city,  directly  back  of  the 
Carmine,  in  a  by-street  called  the  Via  Nunziatina,  not  far 
from  that  in  which  the  Casa  Guidi  stands,"  which  Mr. 
Forstcr  thus  describes.  I  continued  these  visits,  always 
short,  till  very  near  the  close  ;  for  whether  merely  from 
the  jjcrfect  courtesy  which  was  a  part  of  his  nature,  or 
whether  because  such  interrujitions  of  the  long  nuirning 
hours  were  really  weh-ome  to  him,  he  never  allowed  me 
to  leave  him  without  bidding  me  come  again. 

I  remembi-r  him  askini;  me  after  mv  mother  at  one  of 
the  latest  of  these  visits.  I  told  him  that  she  was  fairly 
well,  was  not  sufTering,  but  that  she  was  becoming  very 
deaf.  "  Dead,  is  she?"  he  cried,  for  he  had  heard  nie  im- 
perfectly ;  "  I  wish  I  was  I     I  can't  sleep,"  he  adde<l,  "  but  I 


440  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

very  soon  shall,  soundly  too,  and  all  the  twenty-four  hours 
round."  I  used  often  to  find  him  reading  one  of  the  novels 
of  his  old  friend  G.  P.  R.  James,  and  he  hardly  ever  failed 
to  remark  that  he  was  a  "  Avoonderful "  writer  ;  for  so  he 
pronounced  the  word,  which  was  rather  a  favorite  one 
with  him. 

It  was  a  singular  thing  that  Landor  always  dropped  his 
aspirates.  He  was,  I  think,  the  only  man  in  his  position  in 
life  whom  I  ever  heard  do  so.  That  a  man  who  was  not 
only  by  birth  a  gentleman,  but  was  by  genius  and  culture 
— and  such  culture  ! — very  much  more,  should  do  this, 
seemed  to  me  an  incomprehensible  thing.  I  do  not  think 
he  ever  introduced  the  aspirate  where  it  was  not  needed, 
but  he  habitually  spoke  of  'and,  'ead,  and  'ouse. 

Even  very  near  the  close,  when  he  seemed  past  caring 
for  anything,  the  old  volcanic  fire  still  lived  beneath  its 
ashes,  and  any  w^ord  which  touched  even  gently  any  of  his 
favorite  and  habitual  modes  of  thought  was  sure  to  bring 
forth  a  reply  uttered  with  a  vivacity  of  manner  quit.- 
startling  from  a  man  who  the  moment  before  had  seemed 
scarcely  alive  to  what  you  were  saying  to  him.  To  Avhat 
extent  this  old  volcanic  fire  still  burned  may  be  estimated 
from  a  story  which  was  then  current  in  Florence.  The 
circumstances  were  related  to  me  in  a  manner  that  seemed 
to  me  to  render  it  impossible  to  doubt  the  truth  of  them. 
But  I  did  not  see  the  incident  in  question,  and  therefore 
cannot  assert  that  it  took  place.  The  attendance  pro- 
vided for  hiim  by  the  kindly  care  of  Mr.  Browning,  as 
narrated  by  Mr.  Forster,  was  most  assiduous  and  exact,  as 
I  had  many  o])portunities  of  observing.  But  one  day 
Avhen  he  had  finished  his  dinner,  thinking  that  the  servant 
did  not  come  to  remove  the  things  so  promptly  as  she 
ought  to  have  done,  he  took  the  four  corners  of  the  table- 
cloth (so  goes  the  story),  and  thus  enveloping  everything 
that  was  on  the  table,  threw  the  Avhole  out  of  the  window. 

I  received  many  notes  from  Landor,  for  the  most  part 
on  trifling  occasions,  and  possessing  little  interest.  They 
were  interesting,  however,  to  tlie  race  of  autograph  col- 
lectors, and  they  have  all  been  coaxed  out  of  me  at  differ- 
ent times,  save  one.     I  have,  however^  in  my  possession 


WALTER   S.  LANDOR.  441 

several  letters  from  Lini  to  my  father-in-law,  Mr.  Garrow, 
many  passages  in  which  are  so  charactei-istic  that  I  am 
sure  my  readers  will  thank  me  for  giving  them,  as  I  am 
about  to  do.  The  one  letter  of  liis  that  remains  to  me  is, 
as  the  reader  Avill  sec,  not  altogether  without  value  as  a 
trait  of  character.  The  young  lady  spoken  of  in  it  is  the 
same  from  whose  papers  in  the  Atlantic  Jlonthli/,  entitled 
"  Last  Days  of  Walter  Savage  Landor,"  Mr.  Forster  has 
gleaned,  as  lie  says,  one  or  two  additional  glimpses  of  iiim 
in  his  last  Florence  home.  The  letter  is  without  date,  raid 
runs  as  follows  : 

"My  dear  Sir, — Let  me  confess  to  you  that  I  am  not  very  willing  that 
it  should  be  believed  desirous  [he  evidently  meant  to  write  either  "  that 
I  should  be  believed  desirous,"  or  "  that  it  should  be  believed  that  I  am 
desirous"]  of  scattering  my  image  indiscriminately  over  the  land.  On 
this  sentiment  I  forbade  Mr.  Forster  to  prefix  an  engraving  of  me  over  my 
collected  works.  If  Miss  Field  wishes  07ie  more  photograph,  Mr.  Alinari 
may  send  it  to  her,  and  1  enclose  the  money  to  pay  for  it.  With  every 
good  wish  for  your  glory  and  prosperity, 
"I  remain,  my  dear  sir, 

"  Very  truly  yours,  W.  S.  L.\.ndor." 

The  writing  is  that  of  a  sadly  shaking  hand.  The  lady's 
request  would  unquestionably  have  been  more  sure  of  a 
favorable  response  had  she  preferred  it  in  person,  instead 
of  doing  so  through  me.  But  I  suspect  from  the  phrase 
"one  more,"  and  the  underlining  of  the  word  one,  that 
she  had  already  received  from  him  more  than  one  ])hoto- 
graph,  and  was  ashamed  to  make  yet  another  ajiplication. 
15ut  she  liad  led,  or  allowed,  me  to  imagine  that  she  was 
then  asking  for  the  first  time.  The  care  to  send  the  money 
for  the  price  of  the  ]plu)tngra]ili  was  a  characteristic  touch. 
Miss  Field  was,  1  well  remember,  a  great  favorite  with 
Landor.  I  remember  lier  telling  me  that  he  wi.shed  to 
give  her  a  very  large  sort  of  scrap-book,  in  w  liieli,  among 
a  quantity  of  things  of  no  value,  there  were,  as  1  knew, 
some  really  valuable  drawings;  and  asking  me  Avhelher 
she  should  accejit  it,  her  own  feeling  leaning  to  the  ojiin- 
ion  that  she  fnigl>t  not  to  do  so,  in  wliich  view  I  strongly 
concurre<l.  It"  I  icmeniber  right  the  book  had  been  sent 
to  her  residence,  and  had  to  be  sent  back  again,  not  with- 
out danger  of  seriously  angering  him. 
10* 


442  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

Here  are  the  letters  I  liave  spoken  of,  written  by  Lan- 
dor  to  Mr.  Garrow.  They  are  all  undated  save  by  the 
day  of  the  month,  but  the  postmarks  show  them  to  have 
been  all  written  in  1836-1838.  The  first  is  a  very  long  let- 
ter, almost  the  whole  of  which  is  about  a  quarrel  between 
husband  and  wife,  both  friends  of  the  writer,  which  "it 
Avould  serve  no  good  purpose  to  publish.  The  following 
passage  from  it,  however,  must  not  be  lost : 

"  What  egregious  blockheads  must  those  animals  have  been  who  dis- 
cover a  resemblance  to  my  style  in  Latin  or  other  quotations.  I  have  no 
need  of  crutches.  I  can  walk  forward  without  anybody's  arm ;  and  if  I 
wanted  one,  I  should  not  take  an  old  one  in  preference.  Not  only  do  I 
think  that  quotations  are  deformities  and  impediments,  but  I  am  apt  to 
believe  that  my  own  opinion,  at  least  in  those  matters  of  which  I  venture 
to  treat,  is  quite  as  good  as  any  other  man's,  living  or  dead.  If  their 
style  is  better  than  my  own,  it  would  be  bad  policy  to  insert  it ;  if  worse, 
I  should  be  like  a  tailor  who  would  recommend  his  abilities  by  engraft- 
ing an  old  sleeve  on  a  new  coat.  .  .  .  Southev  tells  me  that  he  has  known 
his  lady  more  than  twenty  years,  that  the  disproportion  of  their  ages  is 
rational,  and  that,  having  only  one  daughter  left,  his  necessary  absences 
would  be  irksome  to  her.  Whatever  he  does,  is  done  wisely  and  vir- 
tuously. As  for  Rogers,  almost  an  octogenarian,  be  it  on  his  own  head ! 
A  dry  nettle  tied  to  a  rose-bud,  just  enough  life  in  it  to  sting,  and  that's 
all.  Lady  Blessington  would  be  delighted  at  any  fresh  contribution  from 
Miss  Garrow.  Let  it  be  sent  to  her  at  Gore  House.  I  go  there  to-morrow 
for  ten  days,  then  into  Warwickshire,  then  to  Southampton.  But  I  have 
not  given  up  all  hope  of  another  jaunt  to  Torquay.  Best  compliments 
to  the  ladies.  Yours  ever,  W.  S.  L." 

The  following  is  dated  the  15th  of  November,  1837 — 
just  half  a  century  ago  ! 

"  35  St.  James's  Square,  Bath. 
"  I  should  be  very  ungrateful  if  I  did  not  often  think  of  you.  But 
among  my  negligences  I  must  regret  that  I  did  not  carry  away  with  me 
the  address  of  our  friend  Bezzi.  [A  Picdmontese  refugee  who  was  a 
very  intimate  friend  of  Garrow's.  I  knew  him  in  long  subsequent  years, 
when  political  changes  had  made  it  possible  for  him  to  return  to  Italy. 
He  was  a  very  clever  and  singularly  brilliant  man,  whose  name,  I  think, 
became  known  to  the  English  public  in  connection  with  the  discovery  of 
the  celebrated  portrait  of  Dante  on  a  long  whitewashed  wall  of  the  Bar- 
gello,  in  Florence.  There  was  some  little  jealousy  about  the  discovery 
between  him  and  Kirkup.  The  truth  was  that  Kirkup's  large  and  curious 
antiquarian  knowledge  led  him  to  feel  sure  that  the  picture  must  be  there, 
under  the  whitewash ;  while  Bezzi's  influence  with  the  authorities  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  the  wall  cleared  of  its  covering.]     I   am  anxious  to 


WALTER   S.  LAXDOR.  443 

hear  how  he  endures  his  absence  from  Torquav,  and  I  will  write  to  him 
the  moment  I  hear  of  him.  Tell  Miss  Garrow  that  the  muses  like  the 
rustle  of  dry  leaves  almost  as  well  as  the  whispers  of  green  ones.  If  she 
doubts  it,  entreat  her  on  my  part  to  ask  the  question  of  them.  Nothing 
in  Bath  is  vastly  interesting  to  me  now.  Two  or  three  persons  have  come 
up  and  spoken  to  me  whom  I  have  not  seen  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
Of  these  faces  I  recollect  but  one,  and  it  was  the  ugliest !  By  the  same 
token — but  here  the  figure  of  aposiopesis  is  advantageous  to  me — old 
Madam  Burridge,  of  my  lodgings,  has  sent  me  three  large  forks  and  one 
small,  which  1  left  behind.  She  forgot  to  send  another  of  each.  What 
is  worse,  I  left  behind  me  a  three-faced  seal,  which  I  think  I  once  showed 
you.  It  was  enclosed  in  a  black,  rough  case.  This  being  of  the  time  of 
Henry  the  Eighth,  and  containing  the  arms  of  my  family  connections,  I 
value  far  above  a  few  forks,  or  a  few  dozens.  It  cannot  be  worth  six- 
pence to  whoever  has  it  One  of  the  engravings  was  a  greyhound  with 
an  arrow  through  him,  a  crest  of  my  grandmother's,  whose  maiden  name 
was  Noble.  If  you  pass  by,  pray  ask  about  it — not  that  I  am  ever  dis- 
appointed at  the  worst  result  of  an  inquiry.  I  am  afraid  the  ladies  of 
your  house  will  think  me  imprudent;  and  what  must  be  their  opinion,  if 
you  let  it  transpire  that  I  have  furthermore  invested  a  part  of  my  scrip 
in  the  beaver  trade.  Offer  my  best  regards  to  them  all,  and  believe  me, 
"  My  dear  sir.  Yours  very  sincerely,  W.  S.  L." 

The  following  is  dated  only  January  2d,  but  the  post- 
mark shows  it  to  have  been  written  from  Bath  on  that 
day,  1838: 

"  My  dear  Sir, — Yesterday  there  were  lying  across  my  fender  three  or 
four  sheets  of  paper,  quite  in  readiness  to  dry  themselves,  and  receive  my 
commands.  One  of  these,  I  do  assure  you,  was  destined  for  Torquay,  but 
the  interruption  of  visitors  would  allow  me  time  only  to  cover  half  a  one 
with  my  scrawl.  Early  last  week  I  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Bezzi,  but  wanted 
the  courage  to  send  it.  I  wish  him  to  remain  in  England  as  much  almost 
as  you  yourself  can  do.  But  if  after  promising  his  lady  [it  is  noteworthy 
that  such  a  master  of  English  as  Laiidor  should  use,  now  for  the  second 
time  in  these  letter.-',  this  ugly  phrase]  to  let  her  try  the  air  of  Italy,  he 
should  withdraw,  she  might  render  his  life  less  comfortable  by  reproaches 
not  altogether  imnu'rilc  1.  When  she  gets  there  she  will  miss  her  friends; 
she  will  hear  nothing  but  a  language  whicii  is  unknown  to  her,  and  will 
find  that  no  change  of  climate  can  remove  her  ailments.  I  offered  my 
house  to  Bi-z/.i  some  time  ngo,  with  its  two  gardens  and  a  hundred  acres 
of  laiul,  all  for  a  hundred  a  year.  But  I  am  confident  my  son  wil"!  never 
remain  in  England,  and  after  the  expiration  of  the  year  will  return  to  Tus- 
cany. Bezzi  cannot  find  another  liou«e,  even  without  garden,  for  that 
money.  James  paid  for  a  worse  twelve  louis  a  month,  although  he  look 
it  for  eight  months.  So  the  houses  in  Tuscany  arc  very  far  from  inviting 
to  an  economist,  although  viislly  less  expensive  than  nt  Torquay,  the  rival 
of  N'iiplcs  in   this   re-pect  as  in   bennly.  ...  I  liiive  found   mv  seul  in  a 


444  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

waistcoat  pocket.  I  do  not  think  the  old  woman  stole  the  forks,  but  she 
knew  they  were  stolen.  .  .  .  Kenyon  has  something  of  Falstaff  about  him, 
both  in  tlie  physical  and  the  moral.  But  he  is  a  friendly  man,  of  rare 
judgment  in  literary  works,  and  of  talents  that  only  fall  a  little  short  of 
genius. 

"  God  preserve  you  from  your  Belial  Bishop !  [Piiilpotts].  What  an 
incumbent !  I  would  not  see  tlie  rascal  once  a  niontli  lo  be  as  great  a  man 
as  Mr.  Shedden,  or  as  sublime  a  genius  as  Mr.  Wise;  [word  under  the 
seal]  would  drown  me  in  bile  or  poison  me  with  blue  pills.  A  society 
has  been  formed  here,  of  which  the  members  have  come  to  the  resolution 
of  making  inquiries  at  every  house  about  the  religion  of  the  inmates,  what 
places  of  worship  they  attend,  etc.,  etc.  Is  it  not  hard  upon  a  man  who 
has  changed  a  couple  of  sovereigns  into  half-crowns  for  Ciiri.stmas  boxes, 
to  be  forced  to  spend  ten  shillings  for  a  horsewhip,  when  he  no  longer 
has  a  horse?  Our  weather  here  is  quite  as  mild  and  beautiful  as  it  can 
possibly  be  at  Torquay.  Miss  Garrow,  I  trust,  has  listened  to  tlie  chal- 
lenges of  the  birds,  and  sung  a  new  song.  As  Bezzi  is  secretary  and 
librarian,  I  must  apply  to  him  for  it,  unless  she  will  condescend  to  trust 
me  with  a  copy.  I  will  now  give  you  a  specimen  of  my  iron  seal,  brass 
setting  and  pewter  mending.  Yours  ever,  W.  S.  L." 

The  mention  of  Bishop  Philpotts  (though  not  by  name) 
in  the  foregoing  letter,  reminds  me  of  a  story  which  used 
to  be  told  of  him,  and  which  is  too  good  to  be  lost,  even 
though  thus  parenthetically  told.  AVhen  at  Torquay  he 
used  to  frequent  a  small  church,  in  which  the  service  was 
at  that  time  performed  by  a  very  young  curate  of  the 
extra  gentle  butter-won't-melt-in-his-mouth  kind,  who  had 
much  objection  to  the  phrase  in  the  communion  service, 
"Eateth  and  drinketh  his  own  damnation,"  and  ventured 
somewhat  tremblingly  to  substitute  "condemnation"  for 
the  word  which  offended  him.  Whereupon  the  orthodox 
bishop  reared  his  head,  as  he  knelt  with  the  rest  of  the 
congregation,  and  roared  aloud  ^'■Damnation!''''  Whether 
the  curate  had  to  be  carried  out  fainting  I  don't  remember. 

The  next  letter  of  Landor's  that  I  have  is  dated  1.3th 
April,  St.  James's  Square,  Bath.  The  postmark  shows 
that  it  was  written  in  1838. 

"  My  dear  Sir, — I  have  had  Kenyon  here  these  last  four  days.  He 
tells  me  that  he  saw  Bezzi  in  London,  and  that  we  may  entertain  some 
hopes  that  he  will  be  induced  to  remain  in  England.  All  he  wants  is 
some  employment ;  and  surely  his  powerful  friends  among  the  Whigs 
could  easily  procure  him  it.  But  the  Whigs,  of  all  scoundrelly  factions, 
are,  and  liave  ever  been,  the  most  scoundrelly,  the  most  ungenerous,  the 


WALTER  S.  LAXDOR.  445 

most  ungrateful.  What  have  they  done  for  Fonblanque,  who  could  have 
kicked  them  overboard  on  his  toe-nail  ?  Their  abilities  put  together  are 
less  than  a  millionth  of  his ;  and  his  have  been  constantly  and  most  zeal- 
ously exerted  in  their  favor.  My  first  conversation  with  Kcnyon  was  about 
the  publication  of  his  poems,  which  are  just  come  out.  They  are  in  part 
extremely  clever;  particularly  one  on  happiness  and  another  on  the  shrine 
of  the  Virgin.  lie  wa.s  obliged  to  print  them  at  his  own  expense;  and 
his  cousin,  Miss  Barrett,  who  also  has  written  a  few  poems  of  no  small 
merit,  could  not  find  a  publisher.  These,  however,  bear  no  proportion 
to  Miss  Garrow's.*  Yet  I  doubt  whether  publishers  and  the  folks  they 
consult  would  find  out  that. 

"  Southey  was  about  to  write  to  me  when  his  brother's  death,  by  which 
six  children  came  under  his  care,  interrupted  him.  I  wish  I  possessed 
one  or  two  of  Miss  Garrow's  beautiful  poems,  that  I  might  ask  his  opin- 
ion and  advice  about  them.  His  opinion  I  know  would  be  the  same  as 
mine;  but  his  advice  is  what  I  want.  Surely  it  cannot  be  requisite  and 
advantageous  to  withhold  them  from  the  world  so  long  as  you  imagine. 
In  one  single  year  both  enough  of  materials  and  of  variety  for  a  volume 
might  be  collected  and  prepared.  Would  Miss  Garrow  let  me  offer  one 
to  the  '  Book  of  Beauty '  ?  I  shall  be  with  Lady  Blessington  the  last  day 
of  the  present  month.  One  of  the  best  poems  of  our  days  [on  death], 
appeared  in  the  last  'Book  of  Beauty.'  But  in  general  its  poetry  is  very 
indifferent.  With  best  regards  to  the  ladies, 
"  I  am  ever,  my  dear  sir, 

"  Yours  most  sincerely,  W.  S.  L." 

The  following,  dated  merely  "Gore  House,  Sunday- 
morning,"  was  written,  or  at  least  posted,  on  the  14th  May, 
1838: 

"  My  dkar  Sir, — It  is  impossible  you  should  not  often  have  thought  me 
negligent  and  ungrateful.  Over  and  over  again  have  I  redd  [«/r]  the  in- 
comparably fine  poetry  you  sent  me;  and  intended  that  Lady  Blessington 
should  partake  in  the  high  enjoyment  it  afforded  me.  I  had  promised  her 
to  be  at  Gore  House  towards  the  end  of  April,  but  I  liad  not  the  courage  to 
face  all  my  friends.  However,  here  I  came  on  Friday  evening;  and  be- 
fore I  went  to  bed  I  redd  to  her  lady.ship  what  I  promi.«ed  her.  She  was 
enchantfcl.  J  thun  requestt-d  her  to  toss  aside  some  stuff  of  mine,  and  to 
make  way  for  it  in  the  next  'Book  of  Beauty.'     The  gods,  as  Homer  says, 

*  To  tho.«c  who  never  knew  Landor,  and  the  habitual  limitless  exagger- 
ation of  his  manner  of  speaking,  it  may  be  necessary  to  observe  that  he 
did  not  really  hold  any  opinion  .so  monstrous  as  might  be  supposed  from 
the  passage  in  the  text.  And  a  lettiT  given  by  Mr.  Forrter  expresses 
carncfllly  and  vigorously  enough  his  high  admiration  for  Miss  Barrett's 
poetry.  It  must  he  remembered,  also,  that  at  the  time  this  wa^  written 
Mr.  Lnnilor  could  only  have  seen  some  of  the  curliest  of  Miss  Barrett's 
writings. 


446  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

granted  half  my  prayer,  and  it  happened  to  be  (what  was  not  always  the 
case  formerly)  the  better  half.  She  will  insert  both.  It  is  only  by  some 
such  means  as  that  that  the  best  poetry  in  our  days  comes  witli  mincing 
stop  into  popularity.  Mine  being  booted  and  spurred,  both  ladies  and 
gentlemen  get  out  of  the  way  of  it,  and  look  down  at  it  with  a  touch  of 
horror. 

"Now  for  news,  and  about  your  neighbors.  Captain  Ackland  is  going 
to  marry  a  niece  of  Massy  Dawson.     Mischievous  things  are  said  about 

Lady  M ,  all  false,  you  may  be  sure.     Adniinil  Aylmer,  after  all  his 

services  under  Nelson,  etc.,  etc.,  is  unable  to  procure  a  commission  in  the 
marines  for  his  nephew,  Frederick  Paynter.  Lord  A.  will  not  ask.  I  am 
a  suitor  to  all  the  old  women  I  know,  and  shall  fail  too,  for  it  is  not  the 
thing  they  want  me  to  ask  of  them. 

"  I  see  two  new  deputy  lord-lieutenants  have  been  appointed  for  the 
County  of  Monmouth.  My  estate  there  is  larger  than  the  lord  lieutenant's  ; 
yet  even  this  mark  of  respect  has  not  been  paid  me.  It  might  be,  safely. 
I  shall  consider  myself  sold  to  the  devil,  and  for  more  than  my  value,  when 
I  accept  any  distinction,  or  anything  else  from  any  man  living.  The  Whigs 
are  growing  unpopular,  I  hear.  I  hope  never  to  njeet  any  of  them.  Last 
night,  however,  I  talked  a  little  with  Grantley  Berkeley,  and  told  him  a  bit 
of  my  mind.  You  see,  I  have  not  much  more  room  in  my  paper,  else  I 
should  be  obliged  to  tell  you  that  the  bells  arc  ringing,  and  that  I  have 
only  just  time  to  put  on  my  gloves  for  church. 

"Adieu,  and  believe  me,  with  kindly  regards  to  the  ladies, 

"  Yours,  W.  S.  L." 

Tlie  last  in  this  series  of  letters  which  has  reached  my 
hands  is  altogether  undated,  but  appears  by  the  postmark 
to  have  been  written  from  Bath,  19th  July,  1838  : 

"  My  dear  Sir, — There  is  one  sentence  in  your  letter  which  shocked  me 
not  a  little.  You  say  '  The  Whigs  have  not  offered  you  a  deputy-lieuten- 
antcy ;  so  cheap  a  distinction  could  not  have  hurt  them.  But  then  you  are 
too  proud  to  ask,'  etc.  Do  you  really  suppose  that  I  would  have  accepted 
it  even  if  it  had  been  offered  ?  No,  by  God  !  I  would  not  accept  any  dis- 
tinction even  if  it  were  offered  by  honest  men.  I  will  have  nothing  but 
what  I  can  take.  It  is,  however,  both  an  injustice  and  an  affront  to  confer 
this  dignity  on  low  people,  who  do  not  possess  a  fourth  of  my  property,  and 
whose  family  is  as  ignoble  as  Lord  Melbourne's  own,  and  not  to  have  of- 
fered the  same  to  me.  In  the  eleventh  page  of  the  '  Letters '  I  published 
after  the  quelling  of  Bonaparte  are  these  words :  '  I  was  the  first  to  abjure 
the  party  of  the  Wliig.s,  and  shall  be  the  last  to  abjure  the  principles. 
When  the  leaders  had  broken  all  their  promises  to  the  nation,  had  shown 
their  utter  incapacity  to  manage  its  affairs,  and  their  inclination  to  crouch 
before  the  enemy,  I  permitted  my  heart  after  some  struggles  to  subside 
and  repose  in  the  cool  of  this  reflection — Let  them  escape.  It  is  only  the 
French  nation  that  ever  dragged  such  feebleness  to  the  scaffold.'  Again, 
page  35 :  '  Ilonest  men,  I  confess,  have  generally  in  the  present  times  an 


•WALTER  S.   LAXDOR.  447 

aversion  to  the  Wliig  faction,  not  because  it  is  suitable  either  to  honesty 
or  understanding  to  prefer  the  narrow  principles  of  the  opposite  party,  but 
because  in  every  country  lax  morals  wish  to  be  and  are  identified  with  pub- 
lic fueling,  and  because  in  our  own  a  few  of  the  very  best  have  been  found 
in  an  association  with  the  very  worst.'  Wlienever  the  Tories  have  deviated 
from  their  tenets,  they  have  enlarged  their  views  and  exceeded  their  prom- 
ises. Tlie  Whigs  have  always  taken  an  inverse  course.  Wlienever  they 
have  come  into  power,  they  have  previously  been  obliged  to  sligiit  those 
matters,  and  to  temporize  with  those  duties,  which  they  had  not  the  courage 
eitlier  to  follow  or  to  renounce. 

"  And  now,  my  dear  sir,  to  pleasanter  matters.  I  have  nothing  in  the 
press,  and  never  shall  have.  I  gave  Forster  all  my  works,  written  or  to 
be  written.  Neither  I  nor  my  family  shall  have  anything  to  do  with  book- 
sellers. They  say  a  new  edition  of  my  '  Imaginary  Conversations '  is  called 
for.  I  have  sent  Forster  a  dozen  or  two  of  fresh  ones,  but  I  hope  he  will 
not  hazard  them  before  my  death,  and  will  get  a  hundred  pounds,  or  near 
it,  for  the  whole. 

"  If  ever  I  attended  a  public  dinner,  I  should  like  to  have  been  present 
at  that  which  the  people  gave  to  you.  Never  let  them  be  quiet  until  the 
Church  has  gone  to  the  devil,  its  lawful  owner,  and  till  something  a  little 
like  Christianity  takes  its  place.  If  parsons  are  to  be  lords,  it  is  but  right 
and  reasonable  that  the  queen  should  be  pope.  Indeed,  I  have  no  objec- 
tion to  this,  but  I  have  to  the  other.  What  a  singularity  it  is  that  those 
who  profess  a  belief  in  Christ  do  not  obey  him,  while  those  who  profess  it 
in  Mahomet  or  Moses  or  Boodli  are  obedient  to  their  precepts,  if  not  in 
certain  points  of  morality,  in  all  things  else.  Carlyle  is  a  vigorous  thinker, 
but  a  vile  writer,  worse  than  Bulwer.  I  breakfasted  in  company  with  him 
at  Milman's.  Macaulay  was  there,  a  clever  clown,  and  Moore  too,  whom  I 
had  not  seen  till  then.  Between  those  two  Scotchmen  he  appeared  like  a 
glow-worm  between  two  thistles.  There  were  several  other  folks,  literary 
and  half  literary.  Lord  Northampton,  etc.,  etc.  I  forgot  Rogers.  Milman 
has  written  the  two  best  volumes  of  poetry  we  have  seen  lately  ;  but  when 
Miss  Garrow  publishes  hers  I  am  certain  there  will  be  a  total  eclipse  of 
them.  My  friend  Hare's  brother,  who  married  a  sister  of  the  impudent 
coxcomb,  Edward  Stanley,  has  bought  a  hou.'sc  at  Torquay,  and  Hare  tells 
me  that  unless  he  goes  to  Sicily  lie  siuill  be  there  in  winter.  If  so,  we  may 
meet;  but  Bath  is  my  dear  delight  in  all  seasons.  I  have  been  sitting  for 
njy  picture,  and  have  given  it  to  Mi-s.  Payntcr.  It  is  admirably  executed 
by  Fisher.  Yours  ever,  W.  S.  L," 

These  letters  arc  .ill  written  n|»on  the  ohlfashioned 
square  sheet  of  letter  pajier,  some  gilt-etlgicl,  eiitiri-ly 
written  over,  even  to  the  turned-down  ends,  and  heavily 
sealed. 

Mr.  Forster  says  no  word  ahout  the  deputy-lieutenantcy, 
and  Landor's  anger  and  disgust  in  eonneeti(»n  with  it.  He 
must  necessarily  have  known  all   aliKiit   it,  but   jiroltaMy 


448  WHAT   I    REMEMBER. 

in  tlie  exuberance  of  his  material  did  not  think  it  worth 
mentioning.  But  it  evidently  left  almost  as  painful  an 
impression  on  Landor's  mind  as  the  famous  refusal  of 
the  Duke  of  Beaufort  to  appoint  him  a  justice  of  the 

peace. 

During  the  later  portion  of  my  life  at  Florence,  and 
subsequently  at  Rome,  Mr.  G.  P.  Marsh  and  his  very 
charming  wife  were  among  our  most  valued  friends  for 
many  years.  Marsh  was  an  exception  to  the  prevailing 
American  rule,  which  for  the  most  part  changes  their  di- 
plomatists with  the  change  of  president,  lie  had  been 
United  States  minister  at  Constantinople  and  at  Turin  be- 
fore he  came  to  Florence  with  the  Italian  monarchy.  At 
Rome  he  Avas  "  the  dean  "  of  the  diplomatic  body,  and  on 
many  occasions  various  representative  duties  fell  upon  him 
as  such  Avhich  were  especially  unwelcome  to  him.  The 
determination  of  the  Great  Powers  to  send  ambassadors 
to  the  court  of  the  Quirinal  instead  of  ministers  plenipo- 
tentiary, as  previously,  came  as  a  great  boon  to  Mr.  Marsh. 
For  as  the  United  States  send  no  ambassadors,  his  position 
as  longest  in  office  of  all  the  diplomatic  body  no  longer 
placed  him  at  the  head  of  it. 

Mr.  Marsh  was  a  man  of  very  large  and  varied  culture. 
A  thorough  classical  scholar  and  excellent  modern  linguist, 
philology  was,  perhaps,  his  most  favorite  pursuit.  He 
wrote  various  books,  his  best  I  think  a  very  large  octavo 
volume,  entitled  not  very  happily  "  Man  in  Nature."  The 
subject  of  it  is  the  modifications  and  alterations  which  this 
planet  has  undergone  at  the  hands  of  man.  His  subject 
leads  him  to  consider  much  at  large  the  "denudation  of 
mountains,  which  has  caused  and  is  causing  such  calami- 
tous mischief  in  Italy  and  the  south  of  France.  He  shows 
very  convincingly  and  interestingly  that  the  destruction 
of  forests  causes  not  only  floods  in  winter  and  spring,  but 
drought  in  summer  and  autumn.  And  the  efforts  which 
have  recently  been  made  in  Italy  to  take  some  steps  tow- 
ards the  reclothing  of  the  mountain-sides  have  in  great 
measure  been  due  to  his  work,  which  has  been  largely  cir- 
culated in  an  Italian  translation. 

The  following  letter  which  I  select  from  many  received 


G.   P.   MARSH.  449 

from  him,  is  not  without  interest.     It  is  dated  30th  No- 
vember, 18G7. 

"Dkar  Sik, — I  return  you  Layard's  article,  which  displays  his  usual 
marked  ability,  and  has  given  me  much  pleasure  as  well  as  instruction.  I 
should  much  like  to  know  what  are  his  grounds  for  believing  that  'a  satis- 
factory settlement  of  this  Roman  question  would  have  been  speedily 
brought  about  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Italian  government  and  the 
Liberal  party  in  Rome,  and  with  the  tacit  consent  of  the  Emperor  of  the 
French,  had  it  not  been  for  the  untoward  enterprise  of  Garibaldi,'  p.  283. 
I  certainly  have  not  the  slightest  ground  for  believing  any  such  thing ;  nor 
do  I  understand  to  leltom  the  settlement  referred  to  would  have  been  '  satis- 
factory.' Does  Mr.  Layard  suppose  that  any  conceivable  arrangement 
would  be  satisfactory  both  to  the  papacy  and  to  Italian  Liberals  out  of 
Rome?  The  governtuent  of  Italy,  which  changes  as  often  as  the  moon, 
might  have  accepted  something  which  would  have  satisfied  LouLs  Napoleon, 
Antoneili,  and  the  three  hundred  nobili  of  Rome,  who  waited  at  dinner, 
napkin  on  arm,  on  the  Antiboini,  to  whom  they  gave  an  entertainment — 
but  the  people  ? 

"  I  send  you  one  of  Ferretti's  pamphlets,  which  please  keep.  And  I  en- 
close in  the  package  two  of  Tuckerman's  books.  If  you  could  turn  over 
the  leaves  of  these  and  say  to  me  in  a  note  that  they  impress  you  favor- 
obly,  and  that  you  are  not  displeased  with  his  magazine  article,  I  will  make 
him  a  happy  man  by  sending  him  the  note. 

"Very  truly  yours,  Geo.  P.  Marsu." 

I  did  more  than  "turn  over  the  leaves  "  of  the  book  sent, 
and  did  very  truly  say  that  they  had  interested  me  much. 
It  is  rather  suggestive  to  reflect  how  utterly  uninteHigil)le 
to  the  present  generation  must  be  the  term  "Antiboini" 
in  tlie  above  letter,  without  a  Avord  of  oxjdanation.  The 
liighly  unpopidar  and  objectionable  "  Papal  Legion  "  had 
been  in  great  part  recruited  from  Antibes,  and  were  hence 
nicknamed  "  Antiboini,"  and  not,  as  readers  of  the  present 
day  might  fairly  imagine,  from  having  been  the  opponents 
of  any  "  l)()ini." 

The  per.sonal  (|iialitics  of  -Mr.  Marsh  had  obtained  for 
him  a  great  and,  I  may  indeed  say,  exceptional  degree  of 
consideration  and  regard  from  his  ct)lleagues  of  the  di|)l()- 
matic  body,  and  from  the  Italian  ministers  and  political 
world  geni'rally.  And  I  remember  one  notable  instaiu-e 
of  the  manifi'statiou  of  this,  which  I  cannot  refrain  from 
citing.  Mr.  Marsh  had  written  home  to  his  government 
some  ratluT  trenchantly  unfavorable  remarks  on  some  por- 
tion of  the  then  recent  measures  of  the  Italian  iiiiiiistrv. 


450  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

And  by  some  awkward  accident  or  mistake  these  bad 
found  their  way  into  the  columns  of  an  American  news- 
paper. The  circumstances  might  have  given  rise  to  very 
disagreeable  and  mischievous  complications  and  results. 
But  the  matter  was  sulfered  to  pass  without  any  official 
observation  solely  from  the  high  personal  consideration  in 
which  Mr.  Marsh  was  held,  not  only  at  the  Consulta  (the 
Roman  foreign  office),  but  at  the  Quirinal,  and  in  many  a 
Roman  salon. 

Mr.  Marsh  died,  full  of  years  and  honors,  at  a  ripe  old 
ao-e.  But  the  closing  scene  of  his  life  was  remarkable 
from  the  locality  of  it.  He  had  gone  to  pass  the  hot  sea- 
son at  Vallombrosa,  where  a  comfortable  hotel  replaces 
the  old  forestieria  of  the  monastery,  while  a  school  of 
forestry  has  been  established  by  the  government  within 
its  walls.  Amid  those  secular  shades  the  old  diplomatist 
and  scholar  breathed  his  last,  and  could  not  have  done  so 
in  a  more  peaceful  spot.  But  the  very  inaccessible  nature 
of  the  place  made  it  a  question  of  some  difficulty  how  the 
body  should  be  transported  in  properly  decorous  fashion 
to  the  railway  station  in  the  valley  below — a  difficulty 
which  was  solved  by  the  young  scholars  of  the  school  of 
forestry,  who  turned  out  in  a  body  to  have  the  honor  of 
bearino-  on  their  shoulders  the  remains  of  the  man  whose 
writings  had  done  so  much  to  awaken  the  government  to 
the  necessity  of  establishing  the  institution  to  which  they 
belonged. 

Mrs.  Marsh,  for  so  many  years  the  brightest  ornament 
of  the  Italo-American  society,  and  equally  admired  and 
welcomed  by  the  English  colony,  first  at  Florence  and 
then  at  Rome,  still  lives  for  the  equal  delight  of  her 
friends  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  I  may  not, 
therefore,  venture  to  say  more  of  "  what  I  remember  "  of 
her  than  that  it  abundantly  accounts  for  the  feeling  of 
an  unfilled  void,  which  her  absence  occasioned  and  occa- 
sions in  both  the  American  and  English  world  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

MR.    AND     MRS.    L  E  W  E  S. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1860  that  I  first  became 
acquainted  with  "  George  Eliot "  and  G.  H.  Lewes  in  Flor- 
ence. But  it  was  during  their  second  visit  to  Itah^n  1861 
that  I  saw  a  good  deal  more  of  them.  It  was  in  that  year, 
towards  the  end  of  May,  that  I  succeeded  in  persuading 
them  to  accompany  me  in  a  visit  to  the  two  celebrated 
Tuscan  monasteries  of  Camaldoli  and  La  Yernia.  I  had 
visited  both  on  more  than  one  occasion  previously — once 
Avith  a  very  large  and  very  merry  party  of  both  sexes,  of 
whom  Colley  Grattan  was  one — but  the  excursion  made 
in  company  with  G.  H.  Lewes  and  George  Eliot  was  an- 
other-guess  sort  of  treat,  and  the  days  devoted  to  it  stand 
out  in  high  relief  in  my  memory  as  some  of  the  most 
memorable  in  my  life. 

They  were  anxious  to  be  moving  northwards  from  Flor- 
ence, and  I  had  some  difficulty  in  persuading  them  to  un- 
dertake the  expedition.  A  certain  weight  of  responsibil- 
ity, therefore,  lay  on  me — that  folks  whose  days  were  so 
sure  of  being  turned  to  good  profit,  should  not  by  my 
fault  be  led  to  waste  any  of  them.  Hut  I  had  already 
seen  enough  of  both  of  them  to  feel  sure  that  the  special- 
ties of  the  very  exceptional  little  experience  I  jiroposed  to 
them  wouM  be  appreciated  and  accei)table.  Neither  he 
nor  she  were  fitted  by  their  hal)its,  or,  indeed,  by  the 
conditions  of  their  health,  to  encounter  much  ''roughing," 
and  a  certain  amount  of  that  was  assuredly  inevital>le — a 
good  deal  m«)ie  tive-and-twenty  years  ago  than  woiiM  be 
tijo  case  now.  But  if  the  ficsh  was  we.ik,  truly  the  spirit 
was  willing  !  I  have  heard  grumbling  antl  discontent 
from  the  young  of  either  sex  in  the  heyday  of  health  and 
strength  in  going  over  the  .same  ground.  But  for  my 
companions  on  the  present  occasion,  let  the  difficulties  and 


452  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

discomforts  be  what  they  might,  the  continually  varied 
and  continually  suggestive  interest  they  found  in  every- 
thinsr  around  them  overrode  and  overbore  all  material  con- 
siderations. 

Never,  I  think,  have  I  met  with  so  impressionable  and 
so  delicately  sensitive  a  mind  as  that  of  George  Eliot  !  I 
use  "  sensitive "  in  the  sense  in  which  a  jjhotographer 
uses  the  word  in  speaking  of  his  plates.  Everything  that 
passed  within  the  ken  of  that  wonderful  organism,  wheth- 
er a  thing  or  combination  of  things  seen,  or  an  incident, 
or  a  trait  revealing  or  suggesting  character,  was  instantly 
reproduced,  fixed,  registered  by  it,  the  operating  light 
beinof  the  wonderful  native  force  of  her  intellect.  And 
the  photographs  so  produced  were  by  no  means  evanes- 
cent. If  ever  the  admirably  epigrammatic  phrase,  "  Wax 
to  receive  and  marble  to  retain,"  was  applicable  to  any 
human  mind,  it  was  so  to  that  of  George  Eliot.  And  not 
only  were  the  enormous  accumulations  of  stored-up  im- 
pressions safe  beyond  reach  of  oblivion  or  confusion,  but 
they  were  all  and  always  miraculously  ready  for  co-ordi- 
nation with  those  newly  coming  in  at  each  passing  mo- 
ment. Think  of  the  delight  of  passing,  in  companionship 
with  such  a  mind,  through  scenes  and  circumstances  en- 
tirely new  to  it ! 

Lewes,  too,  was  a  most  delightful  companion,  the  cheer- 
iest of  philosophers.  The  old  saying  of  '■'■  Comes  jucundus 
in  via  pro  veJiiculo  est''''  was  especially  applicable  to  him. 
Though  very  exhaustible  in  bodily  force,  he  was  inex- 
haustible in  cheerfulness,  and,  above  all,  in  unwearied,  in- 
cessant, and  minute  care  for  "Polly."  In  truth,  if  any 
man  could  ever  be  said  to  have  lived  in  another  person, 
Lewes  in  those  days,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life,  lived  in 
and  for  George  Eliot.  The  talk  of  worshipping  the  ground 
she  trod  on,  and  the  like,  are  pretty  lovers'  phrases,  some- 
times signifying  much,  and  sometimes  very  little.  But  it 
is  true  accurately  and  literally  of  Lewes.  That  care  for 
her,  at  once  comprehensive  and  minute,  unsleeping  watch- 
fulness, lest  she  should  dash  her  foot  against  a  stone,  was 
never  absent  from  his  mind.  She  had  become  bis  real 
self,  his  genuine  ego  to  all  intents  and  purposes.    And  bis 


MR.  AND  MRS.  LEWES.  453 

talk  and  thoufjhts  were  eoroistic  accordincrlv.  Of  his  own 
person,  his  aihnonts,  his  works,  his  ideas,  his  impressions, 
you  miglit  hear  not  a  word  from  him  in  tlie  intercourse  of 
many  days.  But  there  was  in  his  inmost  heart  a  naif  and 
never-doubting  faith  that  talk  on  all  these  subjects  as  re- 
garded her  must  be  profoundly  interesting  to  those  he 
talked  with.  To  me,  at  all  events,  it  was  so.  Perliaps 
had  it  been  otherwise  there  would  have  been  less  of  it. 

We  were  to  reach  Camaldoli  the  first  night,  and  had 
therefore  to  leave  Florence  very  early  in  the  morning. 
At  Pelago,  a  little  /)«e.se — village  we  should  call  it — on 
the  Arno,  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  miles  above  Florence, 
we  were  to  find  saddle-horses,  the  journey  we  were  about 
to  make  being  in  those  days  practicable  in  no  other  way, 
unless  on  foot.  There  was  at  that  time  a  certain  Antonio 
da  Pelago,  whose  calling  it  was  to  act  as  guide,  and  to 
furnish  horses.  I  had  known  him  for  many  years,  as  did 
all  those  whose  ramblings  took  them  into  those  hills.  lie 
was  in  many  respects  what  people  call  "a  character,"  and 
seemed  to  fancy  himself  to  have  in  some  degree  proprie- 
tary rights  over  the  three  celebrated  Tuscan  monasteries, 
Valloml)rosa,  Camaldoli,  and  La  Vernia.  lie  was  well 
known  to  the  friars  at  each  of  these  establishments,  and 
indeed  to  all  the  sparse  population  of  that  country-side. 
He  was  a  very  good  and  competent  guide  and  courier, 
possessed  witli  a  very  amusingly  exaggerated  notion  of 
his  own  importance,  and  rather  bad  to  turn  aside  from 
his  own  preconceived  and  predetermined  methods  of  doing 
everything  that  ha<l  to  be  done.  George  Eliot  at  once 
made  a  study  of  him. 

I  am  reminded,  too,  as  I  write,  of  the  great  amusement 
with  which  my  old  and  highly  valued  friend  of  many 
years,  Alfred  Austin,  wlio  long  subsequently  was  making 
the  same  excursion  with  me  ami  both  our  wives,  listened 
to  an  oration  of  the  indis])ensable  Antonio.  One  of  his 
baggage-liorscH  had  8tray('<l  an<l  liccuine  temj)orarily  lost 
among  the  hills.  lie  was  exceedingly  wroth,  and  poured 
forth  his  vexation  in  a  torrent  of  very  unparbami'iitary 
language.  *" Corpo  di  (iinthi!''''  he  ex<]aimed,  among  a  cu- 
rious assortment  of  heterogeneous  adjurations — "  Body  of 


454  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

Judas  !" — stooping  to  the  ground  as  he  spoke,  and  striking 
tlio  back  of  his  hand  against  it,  witli  an  action  that  very 
graphically  represented  a  singular  survival  of  the  classical 
testor  inferos!  Then  suddenly  changing  his  mood,  he 
apostrophized  the  missing  beast  with  the  most  tearful  re- 
proach, "  There  !  there  now  !  Thou  hast  made  me  throw 
away  all  ray  devotions  !  All  !  And  Easter  only  just 
gone  !"  That  is  to  say,  your  fault  has  betra^^ed  me  into 
violence  and  bad  language,  which  has  begun  a  new  record 
of  ofifences  just  after  I  had  made  all  clear  by  my  Easter 
devotions. 

The  first  stajje  of  our  rouarh  ride  was  to  the  little  hill- 
town  of  Prato  Vecchio  on  the  infant  Arno,  and  close  un- 
der the  lofty  peaks  of  Falterona,  in  the  flanks  of  which 
both  the  Arno  and  the  Tiber  rise.  The  path,  as  it  de- 
scends to  the  town,  winds  round  the  ruins  of  an  ancient 
castle,  beneath  the  walls  of  which  is  still  existent  that 
Fontebranda  fountain  which  Adam  the  forger  in  the  "In- 
ferno" longed  for  a  drop  of,  and  which  almost  all  Dantes- 
can  scholars  and  critics  mistake  for  a  larger  and  nowadays 
better-known  fountain  of  the  same  name  at  Siena.  On 
pointing  it  out  to  George  Eliot,  I  found,  of  course,  that 
the  name  and  the  whole  of  Adam  the  forger's  history  was 
familiar  to  her  ;  but  she  had  little  expected  to  find  his 
local  habitation  among  these  wild  hills;  and  she  was  un- 
aware of  the  current  mistake  between  the  Siena  Fonte- 
branda and  the  little  rippling  streamlet  before  us. 

The  little  osteria,  at  which  we  were  to  get  some  break- 
fast, was  a  somewhat  lurid  dwelling  in  an  uninviting  back 
lane.  But  the  ready  and  smiling  good-humor  with  which 
the  hostess  prepared  her  coffee  and  bread,  and  eggs  and 
bacon,  availed  much  to  make  up  for  deficiencies,  especially 
for  guests  far  more  interested  in  observing  every  minute 
specialty  of  the  place,  the  persons,  and  the  things,  than 
they  were  extreme  to  mark  what  was  amiss.  I  remember 
George  Eliot  was  especially  struck  by  the  absence  of  either 
milk  or  butter,  and  by  the  fact  that  the  inhabitants  of 
these  hills,  and  indeed  the  Tuscans  of  the  remoter  parts 
of  the  country  generally,  never  use  them  at  all — or  did 
not  in  those  days. 


MR.  AND   MRS.  LEWES.  455 

But  it  was  beyond  Prato  Veccbio  tbat  tbe  most  cbarac- 
teristic  part  of  our  ride  began.  The  hills,  into  the  folds 
and  gullies  of  which  we  plunged  almost  immediately  after 
leavinir  the  walls  of  the  little  town,  are  of  the  most  arid 
and,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  repulsive  description. 
It  is  impossible  to  imagine  soil  more  evidently,  to  the  least 
experienced  eye,  hopeless  for  any  purpose  useful  to  man 
than  these  rolling  and  deeply  water-scored  hills.  Nor  has 
the  region  any  of  the  characters  of  the  picturesque.  The 
soil  is  very  friable,  consisting  of  an  easily  disintegrated, 
slaty  limestone,  of  a  pale  whitey-brown  in  prevailing  col- 
or, varied  here  and  there  by  stretches  of  similar  material 
greenish  in  tint.  For  the  most  part  the  hillsides  are  in- 
capable of  nourishing  even  a  blade  of  grass;  and  they  are 
evidently  in  the  process  of  rapid  removal  into  the  Medi- 
terranean, for  the  further  extension  of  the  plain  that  has 
been  formed  between  Pisa  and  the  shore  since  the  time, 
only  a  few  hundred  years  ago,  when  Pisa  was  a  first-class 
naval  power.  All  this,  with  the  varied  historical  corolla- 
ries and  speculations  which  it  suggested,  was  highly  inter- 
esting to  my  fellow-travellers. 

But  the  ride,  nowhere  dangerous,  though  demanding 
some  stronor  faith  in  the  sure-footedncss  of  Antonio's  steeds, 
is  not  an  ca.sy  one,  Tlie  sun  was  beating  with  unmiti- 
gated glare  on  those  utterly  sharleless  hillsides.  It  was 
out  of  the  question  to  attempt  anything  beyond  a  walk. 
The  sides  of  the  gullies,  which  had  to  be  ascended  and  de- 
6cende<l,  though  never  reaching  to  the  picturesque  propor- 
tions of  precipices,  were  yet  suiliciently  steej)  and  rough 
to  make  very  fatiguing  riding  for  a  lady  unaccustomed  to 
such  exercise.  And  George  Eliot  was  in  no  very  robust 
condition  of  health  at  the  time.  And  despite  his  well-dis- 
sembled an.xicty  I  could  see  that  Lewes  was  not  easy  re- 
Hpectingher  capability  of  resisting  the  heat,  the  fatigue,  and 
the  unwonted  exercise.  But  her  cheerfulness  and  activ- 
ity of  interest  never  failed  her  for  an  instant.  Ibr  mind 
"made  incrcnicnt  of  everything."  Nor  even  while  I  led  her 
horsr  down  sonic  of  the  worst  descents  did  tlie  e.xigciK-ies 
of  the  ])ath  avail  to  interrnjit  conversation,  full  of  thought 
and  far-reaching  suggcstiveness,  as  her  talk  ever  was. 


456  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

At  last  wo  I'eachod  the  spot  where  the  territory  of  the 
monastery  commences  ;  and  it  is  one  that  impresses  itself 
on  the  imagination  and  the  memory  in  a  measure  not  likely 
to  be  forgotten.  The  ehange  is  like  a  pantomime  trans- 
formation scene.  The  traveller  passes  without  the  slight- 
est intermediate  gradation  from  the  dreary  scene  which 
has  been  described  into  the  shade  and  the  beauty  of  a  re- 
gion of  magnificent  and  well-managed  forest.  The  bodily 
delight  of  j^assing  from  the  severe  glare  of  the  sun  into 
this  coolness,  welcome  alike  to  the  skin  and  to  the  eye,  was 
very  great.  And  to  both  my  companions,  but  especially 
to  George  Eliot,  the  great  beauty  of  the  scene  we  entered 
on  gave  the  keenest  pleasure. 

Assnredly  Saint  Romuald  in  selecting  a  site  for  his 
Camaldolese  did  not  derogate  from  the  apparently  in- 
stinctive wisdom  which  seems  to  have  inspired  the  found- 
ers of  monasteries  of  every  order  and  in  every  country 
of  Euro])e.  Invariably  the  jjositions  of  the  religious 
houses  were  admirably  Avell  chosen;  and  that  of  Camal- 
doli  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  convent  is  not  visi- 
ble from  the  spot  where  the  visitor  enters  the  forest 
boundary  which  marks  the  limit  of  the  monastic  domain. 
Nearly  an  hour's  ride  through  scenery  increasing  in  beau- 
ty with  each  step,  where  richly  green  lawns  well  stocked 
with  cattle  are  contrasted  wonderfully  with  the  arid  des- 
olation so  recently  left  behind,  has  still  to  be  done  ere  the 
convent's  hospitable  door  is  reached. 

The  convent  door,  however,  in  our  case  was  not  reached, 
for  the  building  used  for  the  reception  of  visitors,  and 
called  xXie  forestieria,  occupies  its  humble  position  by  the 
road-side  a  hundred  yards  or  so  before  the  entrance  to  the 
monastery  is  reached.  There  Antonio  halted  his  caval- 
cade and,  while  showing  us  our  quarters  with  all  the  air  of 
a  master,  sent  one  of  his  attendant  lads  to  summon  the 
padre  forestAeraio — the  monk  deputed  by  the  society  to 
receive  strangers. 

Had  our  party  consisted  of  men  only,  we  should  have 
been  received  in  the  convent,  where  there  was  a  very 
handsome  suite  of  rooms  reserved  for  the  purpose.  But 
females  could  not  enter  the  precincts  of  the  cloister.     The 


MR.    .\_ND   MES.    LEWES.  45  7 

father  in  question  very  shortly  made  his  appearance,  a 
magnificent  figure,  whose  lung  black  beaid  fiowing  over 
his  perfectly  clean  white  robe  made  as  picturesque  a  pre- 
sentment of  a  friar  as  could  be  desired.  lie  was  extremely 
courteous,  and  seemed  to  desire  nothing  better  than  to 
talk  ad  libitum.  But  for  my  fellow-travellers,  rest  after 
their  broiling  ride  was  the  thing  most  urgently  needed. 

And  this  requirement  brought  us  to  the  consideration 
of  our  accommodation  for  the  night.  The  humble  little 
forestieria  at  Camaldoli  was  not  built  for  any  such  pur- 
pose. It  never,  of  course,  entered  into  the  heads  of  the 
builders  that  need  could  ever  arise  for  receiving  any  save 
male  guests.  And  for  such,  as  I  have  said,  a  handsome 
suite  of  large  rooms,  both  sitting-rooms  and  bedrooms, 
with  huge  fireplaces  for  the  burning  of  colossal  logs,  is 
provided.  Ordinary  brethren  of  the  order  would  not  be 
lodged  there.  The  magnificence  is  reserved  for  a  cardi- 
nal (Gregory  XVI.,  who  had  been  a  Camaldolese,  frequent- 
ly came  here),  or  a  travelling  bishop  and  his  suite,  or  a 
heretic  English  or  American  milord.  But  not  for  any 
daughter  of  Eve  !  And  the  makeshift  room  over  a  car- 
penter's shop,  which  is  called  ihc  forest ieria,  h.SiS  been  de- 
voted to  the  i»urpose  only  in  consequence  of  the  incompre- 
hensible mania  of  female  En<;lish  heretics  for  visitinsx  the 
disciples  of  St.  Komuald.  And  there  the  food  supplied 
from  the  convent  can  be  brought  to  them.  But  for  the 
night?  I  ha<l  warned  my  friends  that  they  would  have 
to  occupy  different  quarters  ;  and  it  now  became  necessary 
to  introduce;  George  Eliot  to  the  place  she  was  to  i>ass  the 
nigltt  in. 

At  the  distance  of  about  twenty  minutes'  M'alk  above 
the  convent,  across  a  lovely  l)Ut  very  steep  extent  of  beau- 
tifully green  turf,  encircled  by  the  surrf)unding  forest, 
there  is  a  cowlmiise,  with  an  anne.ve<l  lodging  for  the  eow- 
heril  .iinl  III-;  wife  And  over  the  cow  stable  is — or  was, 
for  tin-  monks  have  been  driven  away  and  all  is  altered 
now — a  lK'dcliairilnT  witli  three  or  four  beils  in  it,  Mhich 
the  toleration  of  llic  cornniiiriitv  h.is  provicleil  for  the  ac- 
commodation of  the  una<'coiintabIe  feinah-  islanders.  I 
have  assisted  in  conveying  parties  of  ladies  up  that  steep 
20 


458  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

grassy  slope  by  the  light  of  a  full  moon,  when  all  the  beds 
had  to  be  somewhat  more  than  fully  occupied.  But  fort- 
unately George  Eliot  had  the  whole  chamber  to  herself — 
perhaps,  however,  not  quite  fortunately,  for  it  was  a  very 
uovel  and  not  altogether  reassuring  experience  for  her  to 
be  left  absolutely  alone  for  the  night,  to  the  protection  of 
an  almost  entirely  unintelligible  cowherd  and  his  Avife. 
But  there  was  no  help  for  it.  G.  II.  Lowes  did  not  seem 
to  be  quite  easy  about  it  ;  but  George  Eliot  did  not  appear 
to  be  troubled  by  the  slightest  alarm  or  misgiving.  She 
seemed,  indeed,  to  enjoy  all  the  novelty  and  strangeness 
of  the  situation  ;  and  when  she  bade  us  good-night  from 
the  one  little  window  of  her  chamber  over  the  cows,  as  we 
turned  to  walk  down  the  slope  to  our  grand  bedrooms  at 
the  convent,  she  said  she  should  be  sure  to  be  ready  when 
we  came  for  her  in  the  morning,  as  the  cows  would  call 
her,  if  the  cowherds  failed  to  do  so. 

The  following  morning  we  were  to  ride  up  the  moun- 
tain to  the  Sagro  Eremo.  Convent  hours  are  early,  and 
soon  after  the  dawn  we  had  convoyed  our  female  compan- 
ion down  the  hill  to  the  little  forestieria  for  breakfast, 
where  the  lyadre  forestieraio  gave  us  the  best  coflfee  we 
had  had  for  many  a  day.  George  Eliot  declared  that  she 
had  had  an  exceptionally  good  night,  and  was  delighted 
with  the  talk  of  the  magnificently  black-bearded  father, 
who  superintended  our  meal,  while  a  lay  brother  waited 
on  us. 

The  former  was  to  start  in  a  day  or  two  on  his  triennial 
holiday,  and  he  was  much  excited  at  the  prospect  of  it. 
His  naif  talk  and  quite  childlike  questions  and  specula- 
tions as  to  times  and  distances,  and  what  could  be  done  in 
a  day,  and  the  like,  amused  George  Eliot  much.  In  reck- 
oning up  his  available  hours  he  deducted  so  much  in  each 
day  for  the  due  ])erformance  of  his  canonical  duties.  I 
remarked  to  him  that  he  could  read  the  prescribed  service 
in  the  diligence,  as  I  had  often  seen  priests  doing.  "Sec- 
ular priests  no  doubt !''  be  said,  "but  that  would  not  suit 
one  of  us  /" 

Our  ride  up  to  the  Sagro  Eremo  was  a  thing  to  be  re- 
membered.    I  had  seen  and  done  it  all  before  ;  but  I  had 


MR.  AND  MRS.  LEWES.  459 

not  seen  or  done  it  in  company  with  George  Eliot.  It 
was  like  doini?  it  with  a  new  pair  of  eves  and  freshly  in- 
spired  mind.  The  way  is  long  and  steep,  through  mag- 
nificent forests,  with  every  here  and  there  a  lovely  en- 
closed lawn,  and  fugitive  peeps  over  the  distant  country. 
On  our  way  up  we  met  a  singular  procession  coming  down. 
It  consisted  of  a  low,  large  cart  drawn  by  two  oxen,  and  at- 
tended by  several  lay  brothers  and  peasants,  in  the  centre  of 
which  was  seated  an  enormously  fat  brotlur  of  the  order, 
whose  white-robed  bust  with  immense  flowincc  white  beard, 
emerging  from  a  quantity  of  red  wraps  and  coverings 
that  concealed  the  lower  part  of  his  person,  made  an  ex- 
traordinary appearance.  lie  was  being  brought  down 
from  the  Sagro  Eremo  to  the  superior  comfort  of  the  con- 
vent, because  he  was  unwell. 

At  the  Satjro  Eremo — the  sacred  hermitaore — is  seen 
the  operation  of  the  Camaldolese  rule  in  its  original  strict- 
ness and  perfection.  At  the  convent  itself  it  is,  or  has 
become,  much  relaxed  in  many  respects.  The  Camaldo- 
lese, like  other  Carthusians,  are  properly  hermits,  that  is 
to  say,  their  life  is  not  conventual,  but  eremitical.  Each 
brother  at  the  Sagro  Eremo  inhabits  his  own  separately- 
built  cell,  consisting  of  slee{)ing-chamber,  stud}',  wood- 
room,  and  garden,  all  of  microscopical  dimensions.  Ilis 
food,  exclusively  vegetable,  is  passed  in  to  liiin  by  a  little 
turn-table  made  in  the  wall.  There  is  a  refectory,  in  which 
the  membiM-s  of  the  community  eat  in  common  on  two  or 
three  festivals  in  the  course  of  the  year.  On  these  occa- 
sions only  is  any  sj)eech  or  oral  communication  between 
the  members  permitted.  There  is  a  library  tolerably  well 
furni.shc(l  with  historical  as  well  as  theologieal  works.  But 
it  is  evidently  never  used.  Nor  is  there  any  sign  that  the 
little  gardens  are  in  any  degree  cultivated  by  the  occu- 
pants of  them.  I  remar)ie(l  to  (reorge  Klint  on  the  strange- 
ness of  this  al)stinence  fnim  Uotii  the  two  pciniitted  occu- 
pations, which  iniglit  seem  to  afford  some  alleviation  of 
the  awful  solilud*-  and  monotony  of  the  eri'initical  life, 
IJut  she  remarked  tliat  the  facts  as  we  saw  them  were  just 
such  as  she  shouhl  have  expected  to  find. 

Tlie  Sagro  Eremo  is  iiili;ibited  by  three  classes  of  in- 


460  Wn.VT   I   REMEMBER. 

mates  :  firstly,  by  novices,  who  are  not  permitted  to  come 
tlown  to  the  comparative  luxnry  and  comfort  and  milder 
climate  of  the  convent  till  they  have  passed  three  or  four 
years  at  the  Sagro  Eremo ;  secondly,  by  those  who  have 
been  sent  thither  from  the  convent  below  as  punish- 
ment for  some  misdoing  thirdly,  by  tliose  who  remain 
there  of  their  own  free  will,  in  the  hope  of  meriting  a  high- 
er and  more  distinguished  reward  for  their  austerities  in 
a  future  life.  One  such  was  pointed  out  to  us,  who  had 
never  left  the  Eremo  for  more  than  fifty  years  ;  a  tall, 
very  gaunt,  very  meagre  old  man,  with  white  hair,  hollow 
cheeks,  and  parchment-skin,  a  nose  like  an  eagle's  beak, 
and  deep-set,  burning  eyes — as  typical  a  figure,  in  its  way, 
as  the  rosy  mountain  of  a  man  wliom  we  met  travelling 
down  in  his  ox-cart.  ^ 

Lewes  was  always  anxions  lest  George  Eliot  s])ould 
overtire  herself.  But  she  was  insatiably  interested  both 
in  the  place  and  the  denizens  of  it. 

Then,  before  supper  at  the  forest ieria  was  ready,  our 
friend,  the  iviXhcr  forest ieraio,  insisted  on  showing  us  the 
growing  crop  of  haricot-beans,  so  celebrated  for  their  ex- 
cellence that  some  of  them  were  annually  sent  to  Pope 
Gregory  the  Sixteenth  as  long  as  he  lived. 

Tlien  followed  another  night  in  tlie  cowhouse  for  George 
Eliot  and  for  us  in  the  convent,  and  the  next  morning  we 
started  with  Antonio  and  his  horses  for  La  Vernia. 

The  ride  thither  from  Camaldoli,  though  less  difficult, 
is  also  less  peculiar,  than  that  from  Prato  Vecchio  to  the 
latter  monastery,  at  least  until  La  Vcriiia  is  nearly  reached. 
The  i^enna  (Cornish,  Pen  ;  Cundjrian,  Penrith  ;  Spanish, 
Peiia)  on  which  the  monastery  is  built  is  one  of  the  nu- 
merous isolated  rocky  points  which  have  given  their  names 
to  the  Pennine  Alps  and  Apennines.  The  Penna  de  la 
Vernia  rises  very  steeply  from  the;  rolling  ground  below, 
and  towers  al;ove  the  traveller  with  its  ))yramidal  point  in 
very  suggestive  fashion.  The  well-wooded  sides  of  the 
conical  hill  are  diversified  by  emergent  rocks,  and  the 
plume  of  trees  on  the  stimniit  seems  to  suggest  a  Latin 
rather  than  a  Celtic  significance  for  the  "Penna." 

It  is  a  long  and  tedious  climb  to  the  convent,  but  the 


MR.   AND   MRS.  LEWES.  4G1 

picturesque  beauty  of  the  spot,  the  charm  of  the  distant 
outlook,  and,  above  all,  the  historical  interest  of  the  site, 
rewards  the  visitor's  toil  abundantly.  There  is  ^forestieria 
here  also,  within  the  precincts  of  the  convent,  but  not  Avitli- 
in  the  technical  "  cloister."  It  is  simply  a  room  in  which 
visitors  of  either  sex  may  partake  of  such  food  as  the  poor 
Franciscans  can  furnish  them,  Avhich  is  by  no  means  such 
as  the  more  well-to-do  Carthusians  of  Camaldoli  supply  to 
their  guests.  Nor  have  the  (piarters  set  apart  for  the 
sleeping  accommodation  of  male  visitors  within  the  clois- 
ter anything  of  the  spacious  old-world  grandeur  of  the 
stransrers'  suite  of  rooms  at  the  latter  monasterv.  The 
difficulty,  also,  of  arranging  for  the  night's  lodging  of  a 
female  is  much  greater  at  La  Vcrnia.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
very  fairly  comfortable  house,  kept  under  the  manage- 
ment of  two  sisters  of  the  order  of  St.  Francis,  expressly 
for  the  purpose  of  lodging  lady  pilgrims  to  the  shrine. 
For  in  former  days — scarcely  now,  I  think — the  wives  of 
the  Florentine  aristocracy  used  to  undertake  a  pilgrimage 
to  La  Vernia  as  a  work  of  devotion.  But  this  house  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  long  ascent — nearly  an  hour's  severe 
climb  from  the  convent — an  arrangement  which  necessa- 
rilv  involves  much  additional  fatigue  to  a  lady  visitor. 

George  Eliot  writes  to  Miss  Sara  Ilennell,  on  the   I'.Hh 
of  June,  a  letter,  inserted  by  Mr.  Cross  in  his  admirable 
biography  of  his  wife  :  "I  wish  you  could  have  shared  the 
plea.sures  of  our  last  expedition  from  Florence  to  the  mon- 
asteries of  Camaldoli  and  La  Vernia.     I  think  it  was  just 
the  sort  of  thing  you  w<nild  have  entered  into  with  thor- 
ough zest."     And  she  goes  on  to  speak  of  La  Vernia  in  a 
manner  which  seems  to  show  that  it  was  the  latter  estab- 
lishment which  most  keenly  interested  and  impressed  her. 
She  was,  in  fact,  under  tlw  spell  of  the  great  and  still  po- 
tent personality  of  Saint  Francis,  wliieh  informs  with  his 
nieniory  every  detail  of  the  buildings  and  rocks  aroun<l 
you.     Each  legend  was  fidl  of  interest  for  her.     'I'he  alen>- 
i)i(;   <jf   lnr  mind   st-emed  to  have  the  secret  (»f  distilling 
from    traditions   which,  in    their  grossness,  the   ordinary 
visitor  turns  from  with  a  smile  of  contempt,  tlie  spiritual 
value  they  once  j>osses>ed  for  ages  of  f:iil!i,  or  :it  least  the 


462  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

poetry  with  which  the  simple  belief  of  those  ages  has  in- 
vested them.  Nobody  could  be  more  alive  to  every  aspect 
of  natural  beauty  than  she  showed  herself  during  the  whole 
of  this  memorable  excursion.  But  at  La  Vernia  the  hu- 
man interest  overrode  the  simple  aesthetic  one. 

Her  day  was  a  most  fatiguing  one.  And  when  Lewes 
and  I  wearily  climbed  the  hill  on  foot,  after  escorting  her 
to  her  sleeping-quarters,  he  was  not  a  little  anxious  lest 
on  the  morrow  she  should  find  herself  unable  for  the  ride 
which  was  to  take  us  to  the  spot  where  a  carriage  was 
available  for  our  return  to  Florence. 

But  it  was  not  so.  She  slept  well  under  the  care  of  the 
Franciscan  nuns,  who  managed  to  get  her  a  cup  of  milk- 
less  coffee  in  the  morning,  and  so  save  her  from  the  neces- 
sitv  of  again  climbing  the  hill.  A  charmin(?  drive  through 
the  Casentino,  or  valley  of  the  Upper  Arno,  showing  us  the 
aspect  of  a  Tuscan  valley  very  different  from  that  of  the 
Lower  Arno,  brought  to  an  end  an  expedition  which  has 
always  remained  in  my  memory  as  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful of  my  life. 

I  had  much  talk  with  George  Eliot  during  the  time — 
very  short  at  Florence — when  she  was  maturing  her  Ital- 
ian novel,  "  Romola."  Of  course,  I  knew  that  she  was  di- 
gesting the  acquisitions  of  each  day  with  a  view  to  writ- 
ing, but  I  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  the  period  to  which 
her  inquiries  were  specially  directed,  or  of  the  nature  of 
the  work  intended.  But  when  I  read  "Romola"  I  was 
struck  by  the  wonderful  power  of  absorption  manifested 
in  every  page  of  it.  The  rapidity  with  which  she  squeezed 
out  the  essence  and  significance  of  a  most  complex  period 
of  history  and  assimilated  the  net  results  of  its  many-sided 
phases  was  truly  marvellous. 

Nevertheless,  in  drawing  the  girl  Romola,  her  subjec- 
tivity has  overpowered  her  objectivity.  Romola  is  not — 
could  never  have  been — the  product  of  the  period  and  of 
the  civilization  from  wliich  she  is  described  as  having  is- 
sued. There  is  far  too  much  of  George  Eliot  in  her.  It 
was  a  period,  it  is  true,  in  which  female  culture  trod  upon 
the  heels  of  the  male  culture  of  the  time,  perhaps,  more 
closely  than  it  has  ever  done  since.     But,  let  Vittoria  Co- 


MR.  AND   MRS.  LEWES.  403 

lonna  be  accepted,  as  probably  she  may  be,  as  a  fair  expo- 
nent of  the  highest  point  to  which  that  culture  had  reached, 
and  an  examination  of  the  sonnets  into  which  she  has  put 
her  highest  thoughts  and  aspirations  together  with  a  com- 
parison of  those  with  the  mental  calibre  of  Romola  will, 
I  think,  support  the  view  I  have  taken. 

Tito,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  us,  with  truly  wonderful 
accuracy  and  vigor,  "  the  very  form  and  pressure  of  the 
time."  Tlie  ])ages  which  describe  him  read  like  a  quint- 
essential distillation  of  the  Florentine  story  of  the  time 
and  of  the  human  results  v\'hich  it  had  availed  to  produce. 
The  character  of  Savonarola,  of  course,  remains,  and  must 
remain,  a  problem,  despite  all  that  has  been  done  for  the 
elucidation  of  it  since  "Romola"  was  written.  But  her 
reading  of  it  is  most  characteristically  that  which  her  own 
idiosyncrasy — so  akin  to  it  in  its  humanitarian  aspects,  so 
superior  to  it  in  its  methods  of  considering  man  and  his 
relations  to  the  unseen — would  lead  one  to  expect. 

In  1809-70  George  Eliot  and  Mr.  Lewes  visited  Italy 
for  the  fourth  time.  I  had,  since  the  date  of  their  former 
visit,  quitted  my  house  in  Florence,  and  established  my- 
self in  a  villa  and  small  podere  at  Ricorboli,  a  commune 
outside  the  Florentine  Porta  San  Niccolo.  And  there  I 
had  the  great  pleasure  of  receiving  them  under  my  roof, 
assisted  in  doing  so  by  my  present  wile.  Their  visit  was 
all  too  short  a  one — less  than  a  week,  I  think. 

But  one  knows  a  person  with  whom  one  has  passed  even 
that  short  time  under  the  same  roof  far  better  than  can 
ever  be  the  result  of  a  very  much  longer  ac«|uaintanceship 
during  wliich  one  meets  only  in  the  ordinary  interc<nirse 
of  society.  And  the  really  intimate  knowledge  of  her 
which  I  was  thus  enabled  to  obtain  has  left  with  me  the 
abiding  c«»nviction  that  she  was  intellectually  by  far  the 
most  e.xtraurdinarily  gifteil  person  it  has  ever  been  my 
jjood-fortune  to  nu-et.  I  do  not  insist  much  on  the  uni- 
form  anrl  constant  tender  consideration  for  others,  which 
was  her  habitual  frame  of  mind,  for  I  have  known  others 
of  whom  the  same  might  have  1)een  said.  It  is  trui-  thai 
it  is  easv  f<»r  those  in  the  enjovment  of  that  viirorous 
liealth  which  reuilers  mere  living  a  pleasure  to  be  kinilly  ; 


464  WHAT   I    REMEMBER. 

and  that  George  Eliot  was  never  betrayed  by  suffering, 
however  protracted  and  severe,  into  the  smallest  manifesta- 
tion of  impatience  or  unkindly  feeling.  But  neither  is  this 
trained  excellence  of  charity  matchless  among  women. 
AVhat  was  truly,  in  my  experience,  matciiless,  was  simplv 
the  power  of  her  intelligence  ;  the  precision,  the  prompti- 
tude, the  rapidity  (though  her  manner  was  by  no  means 
rapid),  the  largeness  of  the  field  of  knowledge,  the  com- 
pressed outcome  of  which  she  was  at  any  moment  ready 
to  bring  to  bear  on  the  topic  in  hand  ;  the  sureness  and 
lucidity  of  her  induction  ;  the  clearness  of  vision,  to  which 
muddle  was  as  impossible  and  abhorrent  as  a  vacuum  is 
supposed  to  be  to  nature  ;  and  all  this  lighted  up  and  gild- 
ed b}^  an  infinite  sense  of  and  capacity  for  humor — this 
was  what  rendered  her  to  me  a  marvel,  and  an  object  of 
inexhaustible  study  and  admiration. 

To  me,  though  I  never  passed  half  an  hour  in  conversa- 
tion with  her  without  a  renewed  perception  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  distance  which  separated  her  intelligence  from 
mine,  she  was  a  companion  each  minute  of  intol'course 
with  whom  was  a  delight.  But  I  can  easily  understand 
that,  despite  her  perfect  readiness  to  place  herself  for  the 
nonce  on  the  intellectual  level  of  those  with  whom  she 
chanced  to  be  brought  in  contact,  her  society  may  not  have 
been  agreeable  to  all.  I  remember  a  young  lady — by  no 
means  a  stu])id  or  unintelligent  one — telling  me  that  being 
with  George  Eliot  always  gave  her  a  pain  in  "her  mental 
neck,"  just  as  an  hour  passed  in  a  picture-gallery  did  to 
her  physical  neck.  She  was  fatigued  by  the  constant  at- 
titude of  looking  up.  But,  had  she  not  been  an  intelligent 
girl,  she  need  not  have  constantly  looked  up.  It  would 
be  a  great  mistake  to  su])pose  that  George  Eliot's  mental 
habits  exacted  such  an  attitude  from  those  she  conversed 
with. 

Another  very  prominent  and  notable  characteristic  of 
that  most  remarkable  idiosyncrasy  was  the  large  and  al- 
most universal  tolerance  with  which  George  Eliot  regarded 
her  fellow-creatures.  Often  and  often  has  her  tone  of 
mind  reminded  me  of  the  French  saying,  '■'•Tout  connattre 
ce  serait  tout  pardonner V     I  think  that  of  all  the  human 


MH.  AND  MRS.  LEWES.  465 

bein<;s  I  have  ever  known  or  met  George  Eliot  would  Lave 
made  the  most  admirable,  the  most  perfect  father  confes- 
sor. I  can  conceive  nothing  more  healing,  more  salutary 
to  a  stricken  and  darkened  soul  than  unrestricted  con- 
fession to  such  a  mind  and  such  an  intelligence  as  hers. 
Surely  a  church  with  a  whole  priesthood  of  such  confes- 
sors would  produce  a  model  world. 

And  with  all  this  I  am  well  persuaded  that  her  mind 
was  at  that  time  in  a  condition  of  growth,  Iler  outlook 
on  the  world  could  not  have  been  said  at  that  time  to  have 
been  a  happy  one.  And  my  subsequent  acquaintance  with 
her  in  after-years  led  me  to  feel  sure  that  this  had  become 
much  modified.  She  once  said  to  me  at  Florence  that  she 
wished  she  never  had  been  born.  I  was  deeply  pained 
and  shocked  ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  the  utterance  was 
the  result,  not  of  irritation  and  impatience  caused  by  pain, 
but  of  the  influence  exercised  on  the  tone  of  thought  and 
power  of  thinking  by  bodily  malady.  I  feel  sure  that  she 
would  not  have  given  expression  to  such  a  sentiment  when 
I  and  my  wife  were  subsequently  staying  Avith  her  and 
Lewes  at  their  lovely  home  in  Surrey.  She  had  by  that 
time,  I  cannot  but  think,  reached  a  brighter  outlook  and 
happier  frame  of  mind. 

We  had  as  neighbors  at  Ilicorboli,  although  on  the  op- 
])Osite  bank  of  the  Arno,  our  old  and  very  highly-valued 
frieixls,  ]Mr.  G.  P.  Marsh,  the  United  States  minister, 
and  his  charming  wife,  to  whom  for  the  sake  of  both 
parties  we  were  desirous  of  introducing  our  distinguished 
guests.  We  thought  it  right  to  explain  to  ]\Irs.  Marsh 
fully  all  that  was  n<(t  strictly  normal  in  the  relationship  of 
George  Eliut  and  (i.  II.  Lewes  before  bringing  them  to- 
gether, and  were  assureil  both  by  her  an<l  by  her  husband 
that  they  saw  nothing  in  the  circumstances  which  need 
deprive  tlietn  of  the  pleasure  of  making  tlie  ac«|uaintance 
of  persons  whom  it  would  lie  so  agreeable  to  them  to  know. 
'I'he  Mar.shes  were  at  that  time  giving  rather  large  weekly 
receptions  in  the  fine  rooms  of  their  villa,  and  our  friends 
accompanied  us  to  one  of  these.  It  was  very  easy  to  see 
that  both  ladies  appreciated  each  other.  There  was  a  large 
gathering,  mosllv  of  -Xmcricans,  and  I. ewes  ex<'rtcd  him- 
•2U* 


466  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

self  to  be  ai^reeable  and  amusing — which  he  always  was, 
when  he  wished  to  he,  to  a  degree  rarely  surpassed. 

He  and  I  used  to  walk  about  the  country  together  when 
"Polly"  was  indisposed  for  walking;  and  I  found  him 
an  incomparable  companion,  whether  a  gay  or  a  grave 
mood  were  uppermost.  He  was  the  best  raconteur  I  ever 
knew,  full  of  anecdote,  and  with  a  delicious  perception 
of  humor.  She  also,  as  I  have  said — very  needlessly  to 
those  who  have  read  her  books — had  an  exquisite  feeling 
and  appreciation  of  the  humorous,  abundantly  sufficient,  if 
unsupported  by  other  examples,  to  put  Thackeray's  dicta 
on  the  subject  of  woman's  capacity  for  humor  out  of  court. 
But  George  Eliot's  sense  of  humor  was  different  in  quality 
rather  than  in  degree  from  that  Avhich  Lewes  so  abun- 
dantly possessed.  And  it  was  a  curious  and  interesting 
study  to  observe  the  manifestation  of  the  quality  in  both 
of  them.  It  was  not  that  the  humor,  which  he  felt  and 
expressed,  was  less  delicate  in  quality  or  less  informed  by 
deep  human  insight  and  the  true  nihil-humanum-a-mealie- 
mim-puto  spirit  than  hers,  but  it  was  less  wide  and  far- 
reaching  in  its  purview  of  human  feelings  and  passions 
and  interests  ;  more  often  individual  in  its  applicability, 
and  less  drawn  from  the  depths  of  human  nature  as  ex- 
hibited by  types  and  classes.  And  often  they  would  cap 
each  other  with  a  mutual  relationship  similar  to  that  be- 
tween a  rule  of  syntax  and  its  exami)le,  sometimes  the  one 
coming  first  and  sometimes  the  other. 

I  remember  that  during  the  happy  days  of  this  visit  I 
was  writing  a  novel,  afterwards  published  under  the  title 
of  "  A  Siren,"  and  Lewes  asked  me  to  show  hiin  the  manu- 
script, then  nearly  completed.  Of  course  I  was  only  too 
glad  to  have  the  advantage  of  his  criticism.  He  was 
much  struck  by  the  story,  but  urged  me  to  invert  the 
order  in  which  it  was  told.  The  main  incident  of  the  plot 
is  a  murder  caused  by  jealousy,  and  I  had  begun  by  nar- 
rating the  circumstances  which  led  up  to  it  in  their  natural 
sequence.  He  advised  me  to  begin  by  bringing  before  the 
reader  the  murdered  body  of  the  victim,  and  then  unfold 
the  causes  which  had  led  to  the  crime.  And  I  followed 
his  advice. 


MR.  AND  MRS.  LEWES.  467 

The  murder  is  represented  as  having  been  committed  on 
a  sleeping  person  by  piercing  the  heart  with  a  needle,  and 
then  artistically  covering  the  almost  imperceptible  orifice 
of  the  wound  with  wax,  in  such  sort  as  to  render  the  dis- 
covery of  the  wound  and  the  cause  of  death  almost  impos- 
sible even  by  professional  eyes.  And  I  may  mention  that 
the  facts  were  related  to  me  by  a  distinguished  man  of 
science  at  Florence  as  having  really  occurred. 

Perhaps,  since  I  have  been  led  to  speak  of  this  story  of 
mine,  I  may  be  excused  for  recording  an  incident  con- 
nected with  it,  which  occurred  some  years  sub.'^equently 
at  Rome,  in  the  drawing-room  of  Mrs.  Marsh.  The  scene 
of  the  story  is  Ravenna.  And  Mrs.  Mar.sh  specially  intro- 
duced me  to  a  very  charming  young  couple,  the  Count 
and  Countess  Pasolini  of  Ravenna,  as  the  author  of  "A 
Siren."  They  said  they  had  been  most  anxious  to  know 
Avho  could  have  written  that  book.  They  thought  that 
no  Englishman  could  have  been  resident  at  Ravenna  with- 
out their  having  known  him,  or  at  least  known  of  him. 
And  yet  it  was  evident  that  a  writer  who  could  photo- 
graph the  life  and  society  of  Ravenna  as  it  had  been 
photographed  in  the  book  in  question  must  have  resided 
there  and  lived  in  the  midst  of  it  for  some  time.  But  I 
never  was  in  Ravenna  for  a  longer  time  than  a  week  in 
my  life. 

It  was  many  years  after  the  visit  of  George  Eliot  and 
Mr.  Lewes  to  m}^  house  at  Ricorboli  that  I  and  my  wife 
visited  them  at  The  Heights,  "Wit ley,  in  Surrey.  I  found 
that  George  Eliot  ha<l  grown.  She  was  evidently  hap])ier. 
There  was  the  same  specially  quiet  and  one  may  say  har- 
monious gentleness  about  her  manner  and  her  thought  and 
licr  ways.  But  her  outlook  on  life  seemed  to  be  a  brighter, 
a  larger,  and,  as  I  cannot  doubt,  a  liealthier  one.  She 
would  lu)  longer,  T  am  well  assured,  have  talked  of  re- 
irrrttin<r  that  she  had  been  born.  It  would  l)e  to  give  an 
erroneous  impression  if  I  wito  to  say  that  she  seemed  to 
])e  more  in  charity  with  all  men,  for  assuredly  I  never 
knew  her  f>th(T\vise.  I  Jut,  if  the  words  may  be  used,  as  I 
think  tlicy  in.iy  bo  understood,  without  irreverence,  or 
any  meaning  that  would  he  akin  to  blasphemy,  she  seemed 


468  WHAT   I    REMEMBER. 

to  me  to  be  more  in  charity  with  her  Creator.  The  Avays 
of  God  to  man  had  become  more  justified  to  her ;  and  her 
outlook  as  to  the  futurity  of  the  world  was  a  more  hope- 
ful one.  Of  course  optimism  had  with  her  to  be  long- 
sighted. But  she  seemed  to  have  become  reconciled  to 
the  certainty  that  he  who  stands  on  a  lofty  eminence  must 
needs  see  long  stretches  of  dusty  road  across  the  plains 
beneath  him. 

Nothing  could  be  more  enjoyable  than  the  evenings 
passed  by  the pai'tie  carree  consisting  of  herself  and  Lewes, 
and  my  wife  and  myself.  I  am  afliicted  by  hardness  of 
heai'ing,  which  shuts  me  out  from  many  of  the  pleas- 
ures of  society.  And  George  Eliot  had  that  excellency  in 
woman,  a  low  voice.  Yet,  partly  no  doubt  by  dint  of  an 
exertion  which  her  kindness  prompted,  but  in  great  meas- 
ure from  the  perfection  of  her  dainty  articulation,  I  was 
able  to  hear  her  more  perfectly  than  I  generally  hear  any- 
body. One  evening  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Du  Maurier  joined  us. 
The  Leweses  had  a  great  regard  for  Mr.  Du  IMaurier,  and 
spoke  to  us  in  a  most  feeling  way  of  the  danger  which  had 
then  recently  threatened  the  eyesight  of  that  admirable 
artist.  We  had  music  ;  and  Mr.  Du  Maurier  sang  a  drink- 
ing-song, accompanying  himself  on  the  piano.  George 
Eliot  had  specially  asked  for  this  song,  saying,  I  remem- 
ber, "  A  good  drinking-song  is  the  only  form  of  intem- 
perance I  admire." 

I  think  also  that  Lewes  seemed  in  higher  spirits  than 
when  I  had  been  with  him  at  Florence.  But  this  was  no 
more  than  an  additional  testimony  to  the  fact  that  she  was 
haj)pier. 

She  also  was,  I  take  it,  in  better  health,  for  we  had  some 
most  delightful  walks  over  the  exceptionally  beautiful 
country  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  house,  to  a  greater 
extent  than  she  would,  I  think,  have  been  capable  of  at 
Florence. 

One  day  we  made  a  most  memorable  excursion  to  visit 
Tennyson  at  Black  Down.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had 
ever  seen  him.  He  walked  with  us  round  his  garden,  and 
to  a  point  finely  overlooking  the  country  below,  charm- 
ingly varied  by  cultivated  land,  meadow,  and  woodland. 


MR.  AND   MRS.   LEWES.  469 

It  was  a  magnificent  day  ;  but  as  I  looked  over  the  land- 
scape I  thought  I  understood  why  the  Avoods,  which  one 
looks  down  on  from  a  similar  Italian  height,  are  called 
macchie — stains — whereas  our  oi-dinarily  more  picturesque 
language  knows  no  such  term  and  no  such  image.  In 
looking  over  a  widespread  Italian  landscape  one  is  struck 
by  the  accuracy  and  picturesque  truth  of  the  image  ;  but 
it  needs  the  sun  and  tlie  light  and  the  atmosphere  of  Italy 
to  produce  the  contrast  of  light  and  shade  which  justifies 
the  phrase. 

Our  friends  were  evidently  personce  gratce  at  the  court 
of  the  laureate;  and  after  our  walk  he  gave  us  the  ex- 
quisite treat  of  reading  to  us  the  just  completed  manu- 
script of  "  Rizpah."  And  how  he  read  it  !  Everybody 
thinks  that  he  has  been  impressed  by  that  wonderful  poem 
to  the  full  extent  of  the  effect  that  it  is  capable  of  pro- 
ducing. They  would  be  astonished  at  the  increase  of 
weird  terror  which  thrills  the  hearer  of  the  poet's  own 
recital  of  it. 

He  was  very  good-natured  about  it.  It  was  explained 
to  him  by  George  Eliot  that  I  should  not  be  able  to  enjoy 
the  reading  unless  I  were  close  to  him,  so  he  placed  me  by 
his  side.  lie  detected  me  availing  myself  of  that  posi- 
tion to  use  my  good  eyes  as  well  as  my  bad  ears,  and  pro- 
tested ;  but  on  myap|»cal  ad  misfrlrorJiarn,  i\.\M\  assurance 
that  I  should  so  enjoy  the  promised  treat  to  iiifinitely 
great(ir  effect,  he  allowed  me  to  look  over  his  shoulder  as 
he  read.  After  "Rizpah"  he  n-ad  the  "Northern  Cob- 
bler" to  us,  also  with  wonderful  effect.  The  difference 
between  reading  the  ]>rinted  lines  and  hearing  fhein  so 
read  is  truly  that  bi-tween  looking  (»n  a  bl.xik-and-white 
engraving  and  the  colored  picture  from  which  it  lias  been 
taken.  Another  thing  also  striiek  inc.  The  pioviiu-ial 
dialect,  which,  when  its  peculiarities  are  indicated  by  let- 
ters, looks  so  uncouth  as  to  be  sometimes  almost  puzzlimx, 
8eeme<l  to  pnjduee  nodilliculty  at  all  as  ho  read  it,  thougii 
he  in  no  wise  mitigated  it  in  the  least.  It  seeme<l  the  ab- 
solutely natural  and  necessary  ju'esentation  of  the  thoughts 
and  emotions  to  l»e  rendered.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  dramatic 
relideiinix  of  ihein  of  the  highest  order. 


470  AVIIAT   I   REMEMBER. 

I  remember  with  equal  vividness  heai'ing  Lowell  read 
some  of  his  "  Biglow  Papers  "  in  the  drawing-room  of  my 
valued  friend  Arthur  Dexter,  of  Boston,  when  there  were 
no  others  present  save  him  and  his  mother  and  my  wife 
and  myself.  And  that  also  Avas  a  great  treat ;  that  also 
was  the  addition  of  color  to  the  black-and-white  of  the 
printed  page.  But  the  difference  between  reading  and 
hearing  was  not  so  great  as  in  the  case  of  the  laureate. 

When,  full  of  the  delight  that  had  been  afforded  us,  we 
were  taking  our  leave  of  him,  our  host  laid  on  us  his  strict 
injunctions  to  say  no  word  to  any  one  of  what  we  had 
heard,  adding  with  a  smile  that  was  half  naif,  half  fun- 
ning, and  wholly  comic,  "  The  newspaper  fellows,  you 
know,  would  get  hold  of  the  story,  and  they  would  not  do 
it  as  well  !" 

And  then  our  visit  to  the  Leweses  in  their  lovely  home 
drew  to  an  end,  and  we  said  our  farewells,  little  thinking 
as  we  four  stood  in  that  porch  that  we  should  never  in 
this  M'orld  look  on  their  faces  more. 

The  history  of  George  Eliot's  intellect  is  to  a  great  ex- 
tent legible  in  her  books.  But  there  are  thousands  of  her 
readers  in  both  hemispheres  who  would  like  to  possess  a 
more  concrete  image  of  her  in  their  minds  —  an  image 
which  should  give  back  the  personal  peculiarities  of  face, 
voice,  and  manner,  that  made  up  her  outward  form  and 
semblance.  I  cannot  pretend  to  the  jjower  of  creating 
such  an  image  ;  but  I  may  record  a  few  traits  which 
will  be  set  down,  at  all  events,  as  truthfully  as  I  can  give 
them. 

She  was  not,  as  the  world  in  general  is  aware,  a  liand- 
some,  or  even  a  personable  woman.  Her  face  was  long  ; 
the  eyes  not  large  nor  beautiful  in  color  —  they  were,  I 
think,  of  a  grayish  blue — the  hair,  which  she  wore  in  old- 
fashioned  braids  coming  low  down  on  either  side  of  her 
face,  of  a  rather  light  brown.  It  was  streaked  with  gray 
when  last  I  saw  her.  Iler  figure  was  of  middle  height, 
large-boned,  and  powerful.  Lewes  often  said  that  she  in- 
herited from  her  peasant  ancestors  a  frame  and  constitu- 
tion originally  very  robust.  Her  head  was  finely  formed, 
with  a  noble  and  well-balanced  arch  from  1)row  to  crown. 


MR.  AND   MRS.   LEWES.  471 

The  lips  and  mouth  possessed  a  power  of  infinitely  varied 
expression.  George  Lewes  once  said  to  rae  when  I  made 
some  observation  to  the  effect  that  she  had  a  sweet  face 
(I  meant  that  the  face  expressed  great  sweetness).  "You 
might  say  what  a  sweet  hundred  faces  !  I  look  at  her 
sometimes  in  amazement.  Her  cpunteuance  is  constantly 
changing."  The  said  lips  and  mouth  were  distinctly  sensu- 
ous in  form  and  fulness. 

She  has  been  compared  to  the  portraits  of  Savonarola 
(who  was  frightful)  and  of  Dante  (who  though  stern  and 
bitter-looking  was  hand.some).  Something  there  was  of 
both  faces  in  George  Eliot's  physiognomy.  Lewes  told  us, 
in  her  presence,  of  the  exclamation  uttered  suddenly  by 
some  one  to  whom  she  was  pointed  out  at  a  place  of  pub- 
lic entertainment — I  believe  it  was  at  a  Monday  Popular 
Concert  in  St.  James's  Hall.  "That,"  said  a  bystander, 
"is  George  Eliot."  The  gentleman  to  whom  she  was 
thus  indicated  gave  one  swift,  searching  look  and  ex- 
claimed sotto  voce,  "  Dante's  aunt  !"  Lewes  thought  this 
happy,  and  he  recognized  the  kind  of  likeness  that  Avas 
meant  to  the  great  singer  of  the  Divine  Comedy.  She 
herself  playfully  disclaimed  any  resemblance  to  Savona- 
rola. But,  although  such  resemblance  was  very  distant — 
Savonarf)la's  peculiarly  unbalanced  countenance  being  a 
stronjr  caricature  of  hers — some  likeness  there  was. 

Her  speaking  voice  was,  I  think,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
I  ever  heard,  and  she  used  it  conscientiously,  if  I  may  say 
so.  I  mean  that  she  availed  herself  of  its  modulations  to 
give  thrilling  emphasis  to  what  was  profound  in  her  utter- 
ances, and  sweetn(>ss  to  what  was  gentle  or  jdayful.  She 
bestowed  great  care,  too,  on  her  enunciation,  di.sliking  the 
BJipshod  mode  of  pronouncing  which  is  so  common.  I 
have  several  times  lieard  her  declare  with  enthusiasm  that 
ours  is  a  beautiful  language,  a  noble  language  even  to  the 
ear,  wlien  ])r<)]terly  spoken  ;  and  imitate  with  disgust  the 
short.  .>(//'//7'y,  inarticulate  way  in  which  many  j)eople  utter 
it.  There  was  no  touch  of  pedantry  or  aflfectation  in  her 
own  measured,  careful  speech,  although  1  e:iii  well  imagine 
that  she  might  have  l)een  accused  of  both  by  those  per- 
sons—  unfortunatel v   more  numerous   llian    could  be   de- 


472  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

sireil  —  who  seem  to  take  it  for  granted  that  all  differ- 
ence from  one's  neighbor,  and  especially  a  difference  in 
the  direction  of  superiority,  must  be  affected. 

It  has  been  thought  by  some  persons  that  the  influence 
of  George  Ilenrj'  Lewes  on  her  literary  work  was  not  a 
fortunate  one,  that  he  fostered  too  much  the  scientific  bent 
of  her  mind  to  the  detriment  of  its  artistic  richness.  I  do 
not  myself  hold  this  opinion.  I  am  even  inclined  to  think 
that  but  for  his  companionship  and  encouragement  she  might 
possibly  never  have  written  fiction  at  all.  It  is,  I  believe,  im- 
possible to  overestimate  the  degree  to  which  the  sunshine 
of  his  complete  and  understanding  sympathy  and  his  ador- 
ing affection  developed  her  literary  powers.  She  has  writ- 
ten something  to  this  effect — perhaps  more  than  once  ;  I 
have  not  her  biography  at  hand  at  this  moment  for  refer- 
ence— in  a  letter  to  Miss  Sara  Ilennell.  And  no  one  who 
saw  them  together  in  anything  like  intimate  intercourse 
could  doubt  that  it  was  true.  As  I  have  said  before, 
Lewes  worshipped  her,  and  it  is  considered  a  somewhat  un- 
wholesome experience  to  be  worshipped.  Fortunately  the 
process  is  not  so  common  as  to  constitute  one  of  the  dan- 
gers of  life  for  the  average  human  being.  But  in  George 
Eliot's  case  I  really  believe  the  process  was  not  deleterious. 
Her  nature  was  at  once  stimulated  and  steadied  by  Lewes's 
boundless  faith  in  her  powers,  and  boundless  admiration 
for  their  manifestation.  Nor  was  it  a  case  of  sitting  like 
an  idol  to  be  praised  and  incensed.  Her  own  mental  atti- 
tude towards  Lewes  was  one  of  warm  admiration.  She 
thought  most  highly  of  his  scientific  attainments,  whether 
well-foundedly  or  mistakenly  I  cannot  pretend  to  gauge 
with  accuracy.  But  she  also  admired  and  enjoyed  the 
sparkling  brightness  of  his  talk,  and  the  dramatic  vivacity 
with  which  he  entered  into  convei'sation  and  discussion, 
grave  or  gay.  And  on  these  points  I  may  venture  to  re- 
cord my  0]>inion  that  she  was  quite  right.  I  always  used 
to  think  that  the  touch  of  Bohemianism  about  Lewes 
had  a  special  charm  for  her.  It  must  have  offered  so 
piquant  a  contrast  with  the  middle -class  surroundings  of 
her  early  life.  I  observed  that  slie  listened  with  great 
complacency  to  his  talk  of  theatrical  things  and  people. 


MR.   AND    MRS.   LEWES.  473 

Lewes  was  fond  of  talking  about  acting  and  actors,  and  in 
telling  stories  of  celebrated  theatrical  personages  would 
imitate — half  involuntarily,  perhaps — their  voice  and  man- 
ner. I  remember  especially  his  doing  this  with  reference 
to  Macready. 

Both  of  them  loved  music  extremely.  It  was  a  curious, 
and,  to  me,  rather  pathetic  study  to  watch  Lewes — a  man 
naturally  self-sufficient  (I  do  not  use  the  word  in  any 
odious  sense),  of  a  combative  turn  of  intellect,  and  with 
scarcely  any  diffidence  in  his  nature  —  so  humbly  admit- 
ting, and  even  insisting  upon,  "PolU''s"  superiority  to 
himself  in  every  department.  Once  when  he  was  walking 
with  my  wife  in  the  garden  of  their  house  in  Surrey,  she 
turned  the  conversation  which  had  been  touching  other 
topics  to  speak  of  George  Eliot.  "  Oh,"  said  Lewes,  stop- 
ping short  and  looking  at  her  with  those  bright  eyes  of  his, 
"  Your  blood  be  on  your  own  head!  I  didn't  begin  it ; 
but  if  you  wish  to  speak  of  her, /am  always  ready."  It 
was  this  complete  candor,  and  the  genuineness  of  his  ad- 
mirinir  love  for  her,  which  made  its  manifestations  deliii;ht- 
ful,  and  freed  them  from  offence. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

LETTERS    FROM    MR.   AND    MRS.   LEWES. 

I  HAVE  a  great  many  letters  from  G.  H.  Lewes,  and 
from  George  Eliot.  Many  of  the  latter  are  addressed  to 
ray  wife.  And  many,  especially  of  those  from  Lewes,  re- 
lating as  they  do  mainly  to  matters  of  literary  business, 
though  always  containing  characteristic  touches,  are  not 
of  sufficient  general  interest  to  make  it  worth  while  to 
transcribe  them  for  publication.  In  no  case  is  there  any 
word  in  any  of  them  that  would  make  it  expedient  to 
withhold  them  on  any  other  ground.  I  might,  perhaps, 
have  introduced  them  into  my  narrative  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible at  the  -times  to  which  chronologically  they  refer. 
But  it  has  seemed  to  me  so  probable  that  there  may  be 
many  readers  who  may  be  glad  of  an  opportunity  of  see- 
ing these  letters  without  feeling  disposed  to  give  their 
time  to  the  rest  of  these  volumes,  that  I  have  thought  it 
best  to  throw  them  together  in  this  place. 

I  will  begin  Avith  one  written  from  15Iandford  Square, 
by  George  Eliot,  to  me,  which  is  of  great  interest.  It 
bears  no  date  whatever,  save  that  of  place  ;  but  the  sub- 
ject of  it  dates  it  with  considerable  accuracy. 

"Dkar  Mr.  Trollope, — I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  your  notes.  Con- 
cerning netto  di  specchiOy  I  have  found  a  passage  in  Varclii  which  decides 
the  point  according  ioyour  impression.  [Passages  equally  decisive  might 
be  found  passim  in  the  old  Florentine  historians.  And  I  ouglit  to  have 
referred  her  to  them.  Hut  as  she  had  altogether  mi.staken  the  meaning 
of  the  phrase,  I  had  insinuated  my  correction  as  little  presumptuously  as  I 
could.] 

"My  inference  had  been  gathered  from  the  vague  use  of  the  term  to  ex- 
press disqualification  [i.e.,  non  7icf  to  di-ipecchio  expressed  disqualification]. 
But  I  find  from  Varchi,  b.  viii.,  that  the  .spccchio  in  question  was  a  public 
book,  in  which  the  names  of  all  debtors  to  the  Commune  were  entered. 
Thus  your  doubt  [no  doubt  at  all  !]  h;is  been  a  very  useful  caveat  to  nie. 

"Concerning  the  Bardi,  my  authority  for  making  them  originally joo/>o- 
lani  is  G.  Villani.     He  says,  c.  xxxix., '  e  gia  cominciavano  a  venire  possenti 


LETTERS   FROM   MR.  AND   MRS.  LEWES.  475 

i  Frescobaldi  e  Bardi  e  Mozzi  ma  di  piccolo  cominciamento.'  And  c. 
Ixxxi.,  'c  qnexti  furono  h  principah  case  de'  GiieIJi  che  luscirono  di  Fi- 
renze.  Del  Sesto  d'  Ollr''  Arno,  i  liossi,  Xerli,  e  parte  de'  Manelli,  Bardi,  e 
Frescobaldi  de'  Fopoloni  dal  detto  Sesto,  case  iiobili  Canigiani,'  etc.  These 
pas.sages  corrected  my  previous  impression  that  they  were  originally  Lom- 
bard nobles. 

[It  needs  some  familiarity  with  the  Florentine  chroniclers  to  understand 
that  the  words  quoted  by  no  means  indicate  that  the  families  named  were 
not  of  patrician  origin.     "  There  walked  into  the  lobby  with  the  Radicals, 

Lord and  Mr. ,"  would  just  as  much  prove  that  the  persons  named 

had  not  belonged  to  the  class  of  landowners,  lint  tlie  passage  is  interest- 
ing as  showing  the  great  care  she  took  to  make  her  Italian  novel  histori- 
cally accurate.  And  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  she  came  to  the  subject 
absolutely  new  to  it.  She  would  have  known  otherwise,  that  the  Case 
situated  in  the  Oltr'  Arno  quarter  were  almost  all  noble.  That  ward  of 
the  city  was  the  Florentine  qtiarlier  St.  Germain.'\ 

"  Concerning  the  phrase  in  piazza,  and  in  mercato,  my  choice  of  them  was 
partly  founded  on  the  colloquial  usage  as  represented  by  Sacchetti,  whose 
dialogue  is  intensely  idiomatic.  Also  in  piazza  is,  I  believe,  used  by  the 
historians  (I  think  even  by  Maccliiavelli),  when  speaking  of  popular  turn- 
outs. The  ellipse  took  my  fancy  because  of  its  colloquial  stamp.  But  I 
gather  from  your  objection  that  it  seems  too  barbarous  in  a  modern  Ital- 
ian ear.  Will  you  whisper  your  final  opinion  in  Mr.  Lewes's  ear  on  Mon- 
day ? 

[I  do  not  remember  what  the  ellipse  in  question  was.  As  regards  the 
use  of  the  jihrase  in  piazza  she  is  perfectly  right.  The  term  keeps  the 
same  meaning  to  the  present  day,  and  is  equivalent  in  political  language  to 
tlic  street. '\ 

"  lioto  was  used  on  similar  grounds,  and  as  it  is  recognized  by  the  Voc. 
dtlla  Crnsea,  I  think  I  may  venture  to  keep  it,  having  a  weakness  for  those 
indications  of  the  processes  by  which  language  is  modified. 

[Boto  for  veto  \6  a  Florcntinism  which  may  be  lieard  to  the  present  day, 
though  the  vast  majority  of  strangers  would  never  hear  it,  or  understand 
it  if  they  did.  George  Eliot,  no  doultt,  met  with  it  in  some  of  those  old 
chroniclers  who  wrote  exactly  as  not  only  the  lower  orders,  but  the  gener- 
ality of  their  fellow-citizens,  were  speaking  around  them.  And  her  use  of 
it  testifies  to  the  minuteness  of  her  care  to  roproiluce  the  form  and  press- 
ure of  the  time  of  which  she  was  writing.] 

"Once  more  thank  you,  though  my  gratitude  is  in  danger  of  looking  too 
niui'h  like  a  lively  sense  of  aniicipateil  favors,  for  I  moan  to  ask  you  to 
take  other  trouble  yet.  Yours  very  truly,  Marian  E.  Lkwes." 

T\w  following  U'ttcr,  written  from  lUaiidfonl  S<|uare  on 
tho  r)th  July,  IHOJ,  is,  as  regards  tlir  first  tliree  pages, 
fri'iii  liim,  and  tlic  last  fr"iii  lier: 

"  Mv  i)KAU  TiioLuu'E, — We  have  now  road  'La  Reata'  [my  first  novel], 
and  muit  toll  von  how  oiiarmod  we  liave  boon   with  it.     Xiua  horsolf  is 


476  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

perfectly  exquisite  and  iiulividiial,  and  her  story  is  full  of  poetry  and  pa- 
thos. Also,  one  feels  a  breath  from  the  Val  d'  Ariio  rustling  amid  the 
pages,  and  a  sense  of  Florentine  life,  such  as  one  rarely  gets  out  of  books. 
The  critical  objection  I  should  make  to  it,  apart  from  minor  points,  is  that 
often  you  spoil  the  artistic  attitude  by  adopting  a  critical  antagonistic  at- 
titude, by  which  I  mean  that,  instead  of  painting  the  thing  objectively, 
you  present  it  critically,  xvith  an  eye  to  the  opinions  likely  to  be  formed  by 
certain  readers;  thus,  instead  of  relying  on  the  simple  presentation  of  the 
fact  of  Nina's  innocence,  you  call  np  the  objection  you  desire  to  anticipate 
by  side  glances  at  the  worldly  and  '  knowing '  reader's  opinions.  In  a 
word,  I  feel  as  if  you  were  not  engrossed  by  your  subject,  but  were  suffi- 
ciently aloof  from  it  to  contemplate  it  as  a  spectator,  which  is  an  error  in 
art.  Many  of  the  remarks  are  delicately  felt  and  finely  written.  The 
whole  book  comes  from  a  noble  nature,  and  so  it  impresses  the  reader. 
But  I  may  tell  you  what  Mis.  Carlyle  said  last  night,  which  will  in  some 
sense  corroborate  what  I  have  said.  In  her  opinion  you  would  have  done 
better  to  make  two  books  of  it,  one  the  love-story,  and  one  a  description 
of  Florentine  life.  She  admires  the  book  very  much  I  should  add.  Now, 
although  I  cannot  by  any  means  agree  with  that  criticism  of  hers,  I  fancy 
the  origin  of  it  was  some  such  feeling  as  I  have  endeavored  to  indicate  in 
saying  you  are  often  critical  when  y<ju  should  be  simply  objective. 

"We  had  a  pleasant  journey  home  over  the  St.  Golhard,  and  found  our 
boy  very  well  and  ha[)py  at  llofwyl,  and  our  bigger  boy  dif/o  awaiting  us 
here.  Polly  is  very  well,  and,  as  you  may  imagine,  talks  daily  of  Florence 
and  our  delightful  trip,  our  closer  acquaintance  with  you  and  yours  being 
among  the  most  delightful  of  our  reminiscences. 

"  Yesterday  Anthony  dined  with  us,  and,  as  he  had  never  seen  Carlyle, 
he  was  glad  to  go  down  with  us  to  tea  at  Chelsea.  Carlyle  had  read  and 
agreed w'nh  the  West  Indian  book,  and  the  two  got  on  very  well  together; 
both  Carlyle  and  Mrs.  Carlyle  liking  Anthony,  and  I  suppose  it  was  recip- 
rocal, though  I  did  not  see  him  afterwards  to  hear  what  he  thought.  He 
had  to  run  away  to  Catch  his  train. 

"  He  told  us  of  the  sad  news  of  Mrs.  Browning's  death.  Pcjor  Brown- 
ing! That  was  my  first,  and  remains  my  constant  reflection.  When  peo- 
ple love  each  other  and  have  lived  together  any  time  they  ougl-.t  to  die  to- 
gether. For  myself  I  should  not  care  in  the  least  about  dying.  The 
dreadful  thing  to  me  would  be  to  live  after  losing,  if  I  should  ever  lose, 
the  one  who  has  made  life  for  me.  Of  course  you  who  all  knew  and  val- 
ued her  will  feel  the  loss,  but  I  cannot  think  of  anybody's  grief  but  his. 

"  The  next  page  must  be  left  for  Polly's  postscript,  so  I  shall  only  send 
niy  kindest  regards  and  wishes  to  Mrs.  TroUope  and  the  biggest  of  kisses 
to  la  cantatrice  [my  poor  girl  Bice]. 

"Ever  faithfully  yours,  G.  II.  Lewes." 

"Dkar  Mits.  Tkoli.ope, — While  I  am  reading  'La  Beata'  I  constantly 
feel  as  if  Mr.  Troliope  were  present  telling  it  all  to  me  viva  voce.  It 
seems  to  me  more  thoroughly  and  fully  like  himself  than  any  of  his  other 
books.     And  in  si)ite  of  our  having  had  the  most  of  his  society  away  from 


LETTERS  FROM   MR.  AND   MRS.  LEWES.  477 

you  [on  our  Camaldoli  excursion],  you  are  always  part  of  his  presence 
to  me  in  a  hovering,  aerial  fashion.  So  it  seems  quite  natural  tliat  a  let- 
ter addressed  to  him  should  have  a  postscript  addressed  to  you.  Pray 
reckon  it  among  the  good  you  do  in  this  world  that  you  come  very  often 
into  our  tlioughts  and  conversation.  We  see  comparatively  so  few  people 
that  we  are  apt  to  recur  to  recollections  of  those  we  like  best  with  almost 
childish  frequency,  and  a  little  fresh  news  about  you  would  be  a  welcome 
variety,  especially  the  news  that  you  had  quite  shaken  off  that  spine  indis- 
position wliich  was  still  clinging  to  you  that  last  morning  when  we  said 
our  good-byes.  We  have  enough  knowledge  about  you  and  your  world  to 
interpret  all  the  details  you  can  give  us.  But  our  words  about  our  own 
home  doings  would  be  very  vague  and  colorless  to  you.  You  must  always 
imagine  us  coming  to  see  you  and  wanting  to  know  as  much  about  you  as 
we  can,  and  like  a  charming  hostess  gratify  that  want.  I  must  thank  you 
for  the  account  of  Cavour  in  The  Athenccum^  which  stirred  me  strongly. 
I  am  afraid  I  have  what  TTie  Saturday  Review  would  call  '  a  morbid  delight 
in  deathbeils' — not  having  reached  that  lofty  superiority  wliich  considers 
it  bad  taste  to  allude  to  them. 

"  IIow  is  Beatrice,  the  blessed  and  blessing  ?     That  will  always  be  a 
history  to  interest  us — how  her  brown  hair  darkens,  how  her  voice  deep- 
ens and  strengtliens,  and  how  you  get  more  and  more  delight  in  her.     I 
need  send  no  separate  message  to  Mr.  Trollope  before  I  say  that 
"  I  am  always  yours,  with  lively  remembrance, 

"Marian  E.  Lewes."' 

It  needed  George  Eliot's  fine  and  minute  handwriting 
to  put  all  this  into  one  page  of  note-paper. 

The  next  letter  that  came  from  Blandford  Square,  dated 
nth  December,  18G1,  Mas  also  a  joint  one,  the  larger  por- 
tion of  which,  however,  is  from  her  pen  : 

"Dear  Good  People, — If  your  ears  btirn  as  often  as  you  arc  talked 
about  in  this  house  there  must  be  an  unpleasant  amount  of  aural  circula- 
tion to  endure  !  And  as  the  constant  refrain  is,  '  Really  we  must  write  to 
tliem  that  tliry  may  not  altogether  slip  away  from  us,'  I  have  tliis  morn- 
ing screwed  my  procrastination  to  the  writing-desk. 

"First  an<l  foremost,  let  us  know  liow  you  are,  and  what  are  the  results 
of  tlie  bathing.  Then  a  word  as  to  tlie  new  novel,  or  any  other  work,  will  be 
acceptable.  I  lend  about  '  La  Beata  '  in  all  good  quarters,  and  always  hear 
golden  oj>iiiions  from  all  sorts  of  pcojile.  Of  course,  you  hear  from  An- 
thony. Is  he  prosperous  and  enjoying  his  life?  The  book  will  have  an 
enormous  sale  just  now;  but  I  fancy  he  will  find  more  animosity  and  less 
frit-ndlincss  than  he  expected,  to  judge  from  the  state  of  exa8|)eration 
against  the  Britisher,  which  sf-eins  to  be  general. 

"  We  have  been  purauing  the  even  baritone — I  wish  I  could  say  tenor — 
of  our  way.  My  health  became  seriously  alarming  in  September,  so  wo 
went  off  to  Malvern  for  a  fortnight;  and  there  the  mountain  air,  exercise, 
and  regular  diet  .set  me  up,  so  that  I  have  been  in  better  training  for  work 


478  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

than  I  had  been  for  a  lung  while.  Polly  has  not  been  strong,  yet  not  ma- 
terially amiss ;  but,  as  she  will  add  a  postscript  to  this,  I  shall  leave  her 
to  speak  for  herself. 

"  In  your  (T.  A.  T.)  book  luintiiigs,  if  you  could  lay  your  hand  on  a  copy 
of  Ileruiolaus  Barbarus,  'Compendium  Scientise  Naluralis,'  1563,  or  any 
of  Telesio's  works,  think  of  me  and  pounce  on  them.  I  was  going  to 
bother  you  about  the  new  edition  of  Galileo,  but  fortunately  I  fell  in  with 
the  Milan  edition  cheap,  and  contented  myself  with  that.  Do  you  know 
what  there  is  new  in  the  Florentine  edition  ?  I  suppose  you  possess  it,  as 
3'ou  do  so  many  enviable  books. 

"  We  heard  the  other  day  that  Miss  Blagden  had  come  to  stay  in  Lon- 
don for  the  winter,  so  Polly  sent  a  message  to  her  to  say  how  glad  we 
should  be  to  see  her.  If  she  comes  she  will  bring  us  some  account  of 
casa  Trollope. 

"  When  you  next  pass  Giotto's  tower  salute  it  for  me ;  it  is  one  of  my 
dearest  Florentines,  and  always  beckoning  to  us  to  come  back. 

"  Ever  your  faithful  friend,  G.  H.  Lewes." 

She  writes  : 

"  Dear  Friends, — "Writing  letters  or  asking  for  them  is  not  always  the 
way  to  make  one's  memory  agreeable,  but  you  are  not  among  those  people 
who  shudder  at  letters,  since  you  did  say  you  would  like  to  hear  from  us, 
and  let  us  hear  from  you  occasionally.  I  have  no  good  news  to  tell  about 
myself;  but  to  have  my  husband  back  again  and  enjoying  his  work  is 
quite  enough  happiness  to  fall  to  one  woman's  share  in  this  world,  where 
the  stock  of  happiness  is  so  moderate  and  the  claimants  so  many.  He  is 
deep  in  Aristotle's  'Natural  Science'  as  the  first  step  in  a  history  of  sci- 
ence, which  he  has  for  a  long  while  been  hoping  that  he  should  be  able  to 
write.  So  you  will  understand  his  demand  for  brown  folios.  Indeed,  he 
is  beginning  to  have  a  slight  contempt  for  authors  sufficiently  known  to 
the  vulgar  to  be  inserted  in  biographical  dictionaries.  Hermolaus  Barba- 
ras is  one  of  those  distinguished  by  omission  in  some  chief  works  of  that 
kind ;  and  we  learned  to  our  surprise  from  a  don  at  Cambridge  that  he 
had  never  heard  the  name.  Let  us  hope  there  is  an  Olympus  for  forgot- 
ten anthers. 

"  Our  trial  of  the  water-cure  at  Malvern  made  us  think  with  all  the  more 
emphasis  of  the  possible  effect  on  a  too  delicate  and  fragile  fiiend  at  Flor- 
ence.    [My  wife.]      It   really  helped   to  mend   George.     And  as  I  hope 

the  Florentine  hydropathist  may  not  be  a  quack,  as  Dr. at  Malvern 

certainly  is,  I  shall  be  di.sappointcd  if  there  is  no  good  effect  to  be  traced 
to  '  judicious  packing  and  sitz  baths  '  that  you  can  tell  us  of.  Did  Beatrice 
enjoy  her  month's  dis.sipalion  at  Leghorn?  And  is  the  voice  prospering? 
Don't  let  her  quite  forget  us.  We  make  rather  a  feeble  attempt  at  musi- 
cal Saturday  evenings,  having  a  new  grand  piano,  which  stimulates  musical 
desires.  But  we  want  a  good  violin  and  violoncello — difficult  to  be  found 
among  amateurs.  Having  no  sunshine,  one  needs  music  all  the  more.  It 
would  be  difficult  for  you  to  imagine  very  truthfully  what  sort  of  atmos- 
phere we  have  been  living  in  hero  in  London  for  the  last  month  —  warm, 


LETTERS  FROM   MR.  AXD   MRS.  LEWES.  479 

heavy,  dingy  gray.  I  have  seen  some  sunshine  once  —  in  a  dream.  Do 
tell  us  all  you  can  about  yourselves.  It  seems  only  the  other  day  that  we 
were  shaking  you  by  the  hand ;  and  all  details  will  be  lit  up  as  if  by  j-our 
very  voice  and  looks.  Say  a  kind  word  for  me  sometimes  to  the  bright- 
eyed  lady  by  whose  side  I  sat  in  your  balcony  the  evening  of  the  national 
Fete.  At  the  moment  I  cannot  recall  her  name.  We  are  now  going  to 
the  British  Museum  to  read — a  fearful  way  of  getting  knowledge.  If  I 
had  Aladdin's  lamp  I  should  certainly  use  it  to  get  books  served  up  to  me 
at  a  moment's  notice.  It  may  be  better  to  search  for  truth  than  to  have  it 
at  hand  without  seeking,  but  with  books  I  should  take  the  other  alterna- 
tive. Ever  yours,  M.  E.  Lewks." 

The  lady  in  the  balcony  spoken  of  in  the  above  letter 
was  Signora  Mignaty,  tlie  niece  of  Sir  Frederick  Adam, 
whom  I  liad  known  long  years  previously  in  Rome,  and 
who  had  married  Signor  Mignaty,  a  Greek  artist,  and  was 
(and  is)  living  in  Florence.  She  was,  in  fact,  the  niece  of 
the  Greek  lady  Sir  Frederick  married.  I  remember  her 
aunt,  a  very  beautiful  woman.  The  niece,  Signorina  ^Nlar- 
gherita  Albani  as  she  was  when  I  first  knew  her  at  eigh- 
teen years  old  in  Rome,  inherited  so  much  of  the  beauty 
of  her  race  that  the  Roman  artists  were  constantly  implor- 
ing her  to  sit  for  them.  She  has  made  herself  known  in 
the  literary  world  by  several  works,  especially  by  a  recent 
book  on  Correggio,  his  life  and  works,  published  in  French. 

The  next  letter  from  Lewes,  written  from  Blandford 
Square  on  the  2d  June,  without  date  of  year,  but  probabl}' 
1863,  is  of  more  interest  to  myself  than  to  the  public. 
But  T  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  indulge  my  vanity  by 
juiblishing  it  as  a  testimony  that  his  previous  prai.'^e  of 
what  I  had  written  was  genuine,  and  not  merely  the  laud- 
atory compliments  of  a  correspondent. 

"My  pkar  Tkollope, — Enclosed  is  the  proof  you  were  good  enough  to 
say  you  would  correct.     Wiicn  am  I  to  return  the  compliment  ? 

"I  have  fiiiiifhed  '  Mari<tta.'  Its  picturo  of  Italian  life  is  extremely 
vivid  and  iiiterc.Hting,  but  it  is  a  long  way  bfhiiid  '  La  Ucala '  in  inlLTcst  of 
story.  I  iiavc  just  tini.<4hcd  one  volume  of  Anthony's  '  America,'  and  am 
imtnun.sely  plca.-*fil  with  it — so  much  so  that  I  hope  to  do  something  tow- 
ards* ojuiiteruclihg  the  nasty  notice  in  the  HaturJay. 

"Ever  yours  faithfully,  G.  II.  Lkwes." 

The  next  letter  is  from  Lewes, dated  "The  rri<>iy,  Xortli 
Bank,  Regent's  Park,  2Uth  March,  1N(34  : 


480  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

"  My  dear  Trollope, — M\'  eldest  boy,  wlio  spends  his  honeymoon  in 
Florence  (is  not  that  sugaring  jam  tart  ?),  brings  you  this  greeting  from 
your  silent  but  affectionate  friends.  Tell  him  all  particulars  about  your- 
selves, and  he  will  transmit  them  in  his  letters  to  us.  First  and  foremost 
about  the  health  of  your  wife,  and  how  this  bitter  winter  has  treated  her. 
Next  about  Bice,  and  then  about  yourself. 

"  We  rejoice  in  the  prospect  of  your  '  History  of  Florence,'  and  I  am 
casting  about,  hoping  to  find  somebody  to  review  it  wortliily  for  the  Fort- 
nightly Review.  By  the  way,  would  not  you  or  your  wife  help  me  there 
also  ?     Propose  your  subjects  ! 

"  I  hope  you  will  like  our  daughter.  She  is  a  noble  creature ;  and 
Charles  is  a  lucky  dog  (his  father's  luck)  to  get  such  a  wife. 

"  We  have  been  and  are  in  a  poor  state  of  health,  but  manage  to  scram- 
ble on.  Charles  will  tell  you  all  there  is  to  tell.  With  our  love  to  your 
dear  wife  and  Bice, 

"  Believe  me,  ever  faithfully  yours,  G.  H.  Lewes." 

Shortly  after  receiving  this  my  wife  had  a  letter  from 
George  Eliot,  from  Venice,  dated  15th  May,  1864,  She 
writes  from  the  "  Hotel  de  Ville." 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Trollope, — I  wonder  whether  you  are  likely  to  be  at 
Lake  Como  next  month,  or  at  any  other  place  that  we  could  take  on  our 
way  to  the  Alps.  It  would  make  the  prospect  of  our  journey  homeward 
much  pleasanter  if  we  could  count  on  seeing  you  for  a  few  hours ;  and  I 
will  not  believe  that  you  will  think  me  troublesome  if  I  send  the  question 
to  you.  I  am  rather  discontented  with  destiny  that  she  has  not  let  us  see 
anything  of  you  for  nearly  tiiree  years.  And  I  hope  you  too  will  not  be 
sorry  to  take  me  by  the  hand  again. 

"  My  ground  for  supposing  it  not  unlikely  that  you  will  be  at  one  of  the 
lakes,  is  the  report  I  heard  from  Mr.  Pigott,  that  such  a  plan  was  hover- 
ing in  your  mind.  My  chief  fear  is  that  our  return,  which  is  not  likely  at 
the  latest  to  be  later  than  the  middle  of  June,  may  be  too  early  for  us  to 
find  you, 

"  We  reached  Venice  three  days  ago,  after  a  short  stay  at  Milan,  and 
have  the  delight  of  finding  everything  more  beautiful  than  it  was  to  us 
four  years  ago.  That  is  a  satisfactory  experience  to  us,  who  are  getting 
old,  and  are  afraid  of  the  traditional  loss  of  glory  on  the  grass  and  all 
else,  with  which  melancholy  poets  threaten  us. 

"Mr.  Lewes  says  I  am  to  say  the  sweetest  things  that  can  be  said  with 
propriety  to  you,  and  love  to  Bice,  to  whose  memory  he  appeals,  in  spite  of 
all  the  friends  she  has  made  since  he  had  the  last  kiss  from  her. 

"  I  too  have  love  to  send  to  Bice,  whom  I  expect  to  sec  changed  like  a 
lily-bud  to  something  more  definitely  promising.  Mr.  Trollo])e,  I  suppose, 
is  in  England  by  this  time,  else  I  should  say  all  affectionate  regards  from 
us  both  to  hira.     I  am  writing  under  difficulties. 

"  Ever,  dear  Mrs.  Trollope,  very  sincerely  yours, 

"  M.  E.  Lewes. 


LETTERS   FROM   MR.  AND   MRS.  LEWES.  481 

Here  is  another  from  Lewes,  which  the  postmark  only 
shows  to  have  been  written  in  1865  : 

"  My  dear  Trollopk, — Thank  Signer for  the  offer  of  his  paper, 

and  express  to  him  my  regret  that  in  the  present  crowded  state  of  the  Re- 
view I  cannot  find  a  place  for  it.  Don't  you,  however,  run  away  with  the 
idea  that  I  don't  want  your  contrihutions  on  the  same  ground !     The  fact 

is 's  paper  is  too  wordy  and  heavy  and  not  of  sufficient  interest  for 

our  pubHcation ;  and  as  I  have  a  great  many  well  on  hand,  I  am  forced  to 
be  particular.  Originally  my  fear  was  lest  we  should  not  get  contributors 
enough.  That  fear  has  long  vanished.  But  good  contributions  are  always 
scarce  ;  so  don't  you  fail  me. 

"  We  have  been  at  Tutibridge  Wells  for  a  fortnight's  holiday.  I  was 
forced  to  'cave  in,'  as  the  Yankees  say — regularly  beat.  I  am  not  very 
flourishing  now,  but  I  can  go  into  harness  again.  Polly  has  been,  and, 
alas !  still  is,  anything  but  in  a  satisfactory  state.  But  she  is  gestating, 
and  gestation  with  her  is  always  perturbing.  I  wish  the  book  were  done, 
with  all  my  heart. 

"  I  don't  think  I  ever  told  you  how  very  much  your  '  History  of  Flor- 
ence '  interested  me.  I  am  shockingly  ignorant  of  the  subject,  and  not  at 
all  competent  to  speak,  except  as  one  of  the  public;  but  you  made  the 
political  life  of  the  people  clear  to  me.  I  only  regretted  here  and  there  a 
newspaper  style  which  was  not  historic.  Oscar  Browning  has  sent  me  his 
review,  but  I  have  not  read  it  yet.  It  is  at  the  printer's.  Polly  sends  lier 
love.  Ever  faithfully  yours,  G.  IL  L." 

He  writes  again,  dating  his  letter  1st  January,  1866,  but 
postmarked  1865.  It  is  singular  that  the  date  as  given 
by  the  writer,  1866,  must  have  been  right,  and  that  given 
by  the  postmark,  18G5,  wrong.  And  the  fact  may  possi- 
bly some  day  be  useful  to  some  counsel  having  to  struggle 
against  the  evidence  of  a  postmark.  The  letter  com- 
mences : 

"Mv  DKAR  Tkollopk, — A  happy  new  year  to  you  and  Bice!" 

It  is  (juite  im|»(»ssible  that  Lewes  could  have  so  written, 
while  my  wife,  Theodosia,  so  great  a  favorite  with  Itoth 
him  and  his  wife,  and  so  constantly  iiKpiired  for  tenderly 
by  them,  was  yet  alive.  I  lost  her  on  the  13th  of  April, 
1865.  It  is  certain,  tlierefore,  that  Lewes's  letter  was  writ- 
ten in  IHOG,  ami  not,  as  the  postmark  declares,  in  1S05. 
After  speaking  of  some  literary  business  matters,  the  let- 
ter goes  on  : 

"And  when  am  I  to  receive  tho.sc  articles  from  you  which  you  pro- 
21 


482  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

jected  ?     I  suppose  other  work  keeps  yon  ever  on  the  stretch.     But  so  ac- 
tive a  man  must  needs  '  fullil  himself  in  many  ways.' 

"  We  have  been  ailing  constantly  without  being  ill,  hut  our  work  gets  on 
somehow  or  other.  Polly  is  miserable  over  a  new  novel,  and  I  am  happy 
over  the  very  hard  work  of  a  new  edition  of  my  '  History  of  Philosoi)liy,' 
which  will  almost  be  a  new  book,  so  great  are  the  changes  and  additions. 
Polly  sends  her  love  to  you  and  Hice. 

"  Yours  very  faitlifidly,  G.  H.  Lewes." 

Then  after  a  long  break,  and  after  a  new  phase  of  my 
life  had  commenced,  Lewes  writes  on  the  14th  of  January-, 
1869,  from  "21  North  Bank  :" 

"  De.^r  T.  T., — We  did  not  meet  in  Germany  because  our  plans  were  al- 
together changed.  We  passed  all  the  time  in  the  Black  Forest,  and  came 
home  through  the  Oberland.  I  did  write  to  Salzburg,  however,  and  per- 
haps the  letter  is  still  there;  but  there  was  nothing  in  it. 

"  You  know  how  fond  we  are  of  you,  and  the  pleasure  it  always  gives  us 
to  get  a  glimpse  of  you.  (Not  that  we  have  not  also  very  pleasant  associa- 
tions with  your  wife,*  but  she  is  as  yet  stranger  to  us  of  course.)  But  we 
went  away  in  search  of  complete  repose.  .  And  in  the  Black  Forest  there 
was  not  a  soul  to  speak  to,  and  we  liked  it  so  much  as  to  stay  on  there. 

"  We  contemplate  moving  southwards  iu  the  spring,  and  if  we  go  to 
Italy  and  come  tiear  Florence,  we  shall  assuredly  make  a  detour  and  come 
and  see  you.  Polly  wants  to  see  Arezzo  and  Perugia.  And  I  suppose  we 
can  still  get  a  vetturino  to  take  us  that  way  to  Rome  ?  Don't  want  rail- 
ways, if  to  be  avoided.  I  don't  think  we  can  get  away  before  March,  for 
my  researches  are  so  absorbing  that,  if  health  holds  out,  I  must  go  on  ;  if 
not,  we  shall  pack  up  earlier.  The  worst  of  Lent  is  that  one  gets  no  thea- 
tres, and  precisely  because  we  never  go  to  the  theatre  in  London  we  hugely 
enjoy  it  abro.ad.  Yesterday  we  took  the  child  of  a  friend  of  ours  to  a 
morning  performance  of  the  pantomime,  and  are  utterly  knocked  up  in 
consequence.  Somehow  or  other  abroad  the  theatre  agrees  with  us. 
Polly  sends  the  kindest  remembrances  to  you  and  your  wife.  Whenever 
you  want  anything  done  in  London,  consider  me  an  idle  man. 

"  Ever  yours  faithfully,  G.  H.  Lewes." 

And  on  the  28th  February,  in  the  same  year,  accord- 
ingly he  writes  : 

"  Touching  our  visit  to  Florence,  you  may  be  sure  we  could  not  lightly 
forego  such  a  pleasure.  We  start  to-morrow,  and  unless  we  are  recalled 
by  my  mother's  health,  we  calculate  being  with  you  about  the  end  of 
March.  But  we  shall  give  due  warning  of  our  arjival.  We  both  look 
forward  to  this  holiday,  and  '  languish  for  the  purph;  seas ;'  though  the 


*  I  had  married  my  second  wife  on  the  29th  of  October,  1866. 


LETTERS   FROM   MR.  AND   MRS.  LEWES.  483 

high  winds  now  howl  a  threat  of  anything  but  a  pleasant  crossing  to  Ca- 
lais. Che!  Che!  One  must  pay  for  one's  pleasure!  With  both  of  our 
warmest  salutations  to  you  and  yours, 

"  Believe  me,  yours  faithfully,  G.  H.  Lewes." 

The  traveller.s  must,  however,  have  reached  us  some 
days  before  the  end  of  March,  for  I  have  a  letter  to  my 
wife  from  George  Eliot,  dated  from  Naples  on  the  1st  of 
April,  1809,  after  they  had  left  us.     She  writes  : 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Trollope, — The  kindness  which  induces  you  to  shelter 
travellers  will  nialie  you  willing  to  hear  something  of  tlieir  subsequent 
fate.  And  I  am  the  more  inclined  to  send  you  some  news  of  ourselves 
because  I  have  nothing  dismal  to  tell.  We  bore  our  long  journey  better 
than  we  dared  to  e.xpcct,  for  the  night  was  made  short  by  sleep  in  our 
large  coupe,  and  during  the  day  we  had  no  more  than  one  headache  be- 
tween us.  Mr.  Lewes  really  looks  better,  and  has  lost  his  twinges.  And 
though  pleasure-seekers  are  notoriously  the  most  aggrieved  and  howling 
inhabitants  of  the  universe,  we  can  allege  nothing  against  our  lot  here 
but  the  persistent  coldness  of  the  wind,  which  is  in  dangerously  sudden 
contrast  with  the  warmth  of  the  sunshine  whenever  one  gets  on  the  wrong 
side  of  a  w  ail.  This  prevents  us  from  undertaking  any  carriage  expedi- 
tions, which  is  rather  unfortunate,  because  such  expeditions  are  among 
tiie  chief  charms  of  Naples.  We  have  not  been  able  to  renew  our  old 
memories  of  that  sort  at  all,  except  by  a  railway  journey  to  Pompeii ;  and 
our  days  are  spent  in  the  museum  and  in  the  sunniest  out-of-door  spots. 
We  have  been  twice  to  the  San  Carlo,  which  we  were  the  more  pleased 
to  do,  because  when  we  were  here  before  that  fine  theatre  was  closed. 
Tlie  singing  is  so-so,  and  the  tenor  especially  is  gifted  with  limbs  rather 
than  witli  voice  or  ear.  Bat  there  is  a  baritone  worth  hearing,  and  a  so- 
prano wiiom  tlie  Neapolitans  delight  to  honor  with  hideous  sounds  of 
applause. 

"  We  nre  longing  for  a  soft  wind,  which  will  allow  us  to  take  the  long 
drive  to  Baire  during  one  of  our  remaining  days  here.  At  present  we 
think  <)f  leaving  for  Rome  on  Sunday  or  Monday.  But  our  departure  will 
probably  be  determinecj  l,y  an  answer  from  the  landlord  of  the  Hotel  de 
Minerva,  to  whom  Mr.  Lewes  has  written.  We  have  very  comfortable 
quarters  here,  out  of  the  way  of  that  English  ami  American  society,  whose 
charms  you  can  imagine.  Our  private  dinner  is  well  .•served;  and  I  am 
glad  to  be  away  from  the  Chiaja,  except — the  exception  is  a  great  one — 
for  the  sake  of  the  sunsets  which  I  should  have  seen  there. 

"  Mr.  Lewes  has  foiuid  a  book  by  an  Italian  named  Franchi,  formerly 
a  priest,  on  the  present  condition  of  philosophy  in  Italy.  He  emerges 
from  its  d'  '  r  shallows — to  send  his  best  remembrances;   and  to 

Bio-  he  b<-_  ^\\  to  recommend  Plantation  Bitters. 

"  I  usually  think  all  the  more  of  things  and  places  the  farther  I  get 
from  them,  and,  on  that  ground,  you  will  umhrstJind  that  at  Naples  I 
think  of  Florence,  and  the  kindness  I  found  there  under  my  small  mise- 


484  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

ries.     Pray  offer  my  kind  regards  to  Miss  Blagden  when  you  see  lier,  and 
tell  her  that  I  hope  to  shake  hands  with  her  in  London  this  spring. 

"  We  shall  obey  Mr.  Trollope's  injunctions  to  wiite  again  from  Perugia 
or  elscNvhere,  according  to  our  route  homeward.  But  pray  warn  him  that 
when  my  throat  is  not  sore,  and  my  head  not  stagnant,  I  am  a  much  fiercer 
antagonist.  It  is  perhaps  a  dcliglit  to  one's  egoism  to  havi  a  friend  who 
is  among  the  best  of  men  with  the  worst  of  theories.  One  can  be  at  once 
affectionate  and  spit-fire.  Pray  remember  nie  with  indulgence,  all  of  you, 
and  believe,  dear  Mrs.  Trollope, 

"  Most  truly  yours,  M.  E.  Lewes." 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  that  George  Eliot  had 
very  quickly  fraternized — what  is  the  feminine  form  ? — 
with  my  second  wife,  as  I,  Avithout  any  misgivings,  fore- 
saw would  be  the  case.  Indeed,  subsequent  circumstances 
allowed  a  greater  degree  of  intimacy  to  grow  up  between 
them  than  had  been  possible  in  the  case  of  my  Bice's 
mother,  restricted  as  her  intercourse  with  the  latter  had 
been  by  failing  health,  and  the  comparative  fewness  of 
the  hours  they  had  passed  together.  Neither  she  nor 
Lewes  had  ever  passed  a  night  under  my  roof  until  I  re- 
ceived them  in  the  villa  at  Ricorboli,  where  I  lived  with 
my  second  wife. 

What  was  the  subject  of  the  "antagonism"  to  which 
the  above  letter  alludes  I  have  entirely  forgotten.  In 
all  probability  we  differed  on  some  subject  of  politics,* 
by  reason  of  the  then  rapidly  maturing  Conservatism 
which  my  outlook  ahead  forced  upon  me.  Nevertheless, 
it  would  seem  from  some  words  in  a  letter  written  to  me 
by  Lewes  in  the  November  of  1869,  that  my  political  here- 
sies were  not  deemed  dee|)ly  damning.  There  was  a  ques- 
tion of  ray  undertaking  the  foreign  correspondence  of  a 
London  paper,  which  came  to  nothing  till  some  four  years 
later,  under  other  circumstances  ;  and  with  reference  to 
that  project  he  writes  : 

"  Polly  and  I  were  immensely  pleased  at  the  prospect  for  you.  She 
■was  rejoiced  that  you  should  once  more  be  giving  yourself  to  public  af- 
fairs, which  you  so  well  understand.  .  .  .  We  are  but  just  come  back  from 

*  My  wife,  on  reading  this  passage,  tells  me  that  according  to  her  rec- 
ollection the  differences  in  rpiestion  had  no  reference  to  politics  at  all,  but 
to  matters  of  higher  interest,  relating  to  man's  ultimate  destinies. 


LETTERS  OF   MR.   ASD   MRS.  LEWES.  485 

the  solitudes  of  a  farm-house  in  Surrey,  whither  I  took  Polly  immediately 
after  our  loss  [of  his  son],  of  which  I  suppose  Anthony  told  you.  It  had 
shaken  her  seriously.  She  had  lavished  almost  a  mother's  love  on  the 
dear  boy,  and  suffered  a  mother's  grief  in  the  bereavement.  He  died  in 
her  arms ;  and  for  a  long  wiiile  it  seemed  as  if  she  could  never  jjet  over 
the  pain.  But  now  she  is  calm  again,  tliough  very  sad.  But  she  will  get 
to  work,  and  that  will  aid  her. 

"  For  me,  I  was  as  fully  prepared  (by  three  or  four  months'  conviction 
of  its  inevitableness)  as  one  can  be  in  such  cases.  It  is  always  sudden, 
however  foreseen.  Yet  the  preparation  was  of  great  use;  and  I  now 
have  only  a  beautiful  image  living  with  me,  and  a  deep  thankfulness  that 
his  sufferings  are  at  an  end,  since  recovery  was  impossible. 

"  Give  my  love  to  your  wife  and  Bice,  and  believe  ever  in  yours  faith- 
fully, G.  H."  Lkwes." 

The  following  highly  interesting  letter  was  written  to 
my  wife  by  Mrs.  Lewes,  about  a  year  after  his  death. 
It  is  dated  "The  Priory,  19  December,  1879." 

"  Dear  Miss.  Trollope, — In  sending  me  Dr.  Haller's  words  you  have 
sent  me  a  great  comfort  A  just  appreciation  of  my  husband's  work  from 
a  competent  pereon  is  what  I  am  niost  athirst  for;  and  Dr.  Ilaller  has 
put  his  finger  on  a  true  characteristic.  I  only  wish  he  could  print  some- 
thing to  the  same  effect  in  any  pages  that  would  be  generally  read. 

"There  is  no  biography.  An  article  entitled  'George  Henry  Lewes' 
appeared  in  the  last  New  London  Quarterly.  It  was  written  by  a  man 
for  whom  he  had  much  esteem  ;  but  it  is  not  strong.  A  few  facts  about 
the  early  life  and  education  are  given  with  tolerable  accuracy,  but  the 
estimate  of  the  philosophic  and  scientific  activity  is  inadequate.  Still  it 
is  the  best  thing  you  could  mention  to  Dr.  Haller.  You  know  perhaps 
that  a  volume  entitled  'The  Study  of  Psychology'  appeared  in  May  last, 
and  that  another  volume  (500  pp.)  of  '  Proltlems  of  Life  and  Mind'  has 
just  been  published.  The  best  history  of  a  writer  is  contained  in  his 
writings ;  these  are  Iiis  chief  actions.  If  he  happens  to  have  left  an  au- 
tobiography telling  (what  noijody  else  can  tell)  how  his  mind  grew,  how 
it  was  determined  by  the  joys,  sorrows,  and  other  influences  of  childhood 
and  youth — that  is  a  precious  contribution  to  knowledge.  But  biogra- 
phies Rcni.Tally  are  a  disease  of  English  literature. 

"  I  have  never  yet  told  you  how  grateful  I  was  to  you  for  writing  to  me 
a  year  ago.  For  a  long  while  I  could  read  no  letter.  But  now  I  have 
read  yours  more  than  once,  and  it  i.s  carefully  preserved.  You  had  been 
with  us  in  our  happiness  so  near  the  time  when  it  left  me — you  and  your 
husband  are  [K'culi.irly  Imund  up  with  the  latest  mmioric!^ 

"  Vf)U  must  have  had  a  mournful  summer.  But  Mr.  Trollope's  thorough 
recovery  from  hi.-f  .tcvere  attack  i.s  a  fresh  proof  of  his  constitutional 
Btrcngth.  We  cannot  pniperiy  count  age  by  years.  Sec  what  Mr.  Glad- 
stone does  with  sevmty  of  them  in  his  frame.  And  my  lost  one  had  but 
sixty-one  and  a  half. 


486  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

"You  are  to  come  to  England  again  in  1881,  I  remember,  and  then,  if 
I  am  alive,  I  hope  to  see  you.  Witli  best  love  to  you  both,  always,  dear 
Mrs.  Trollope,  Yours  faithfully,  M.  E.  Lewes." 

The  "  words  of  Dr.  Ilaller,"  to  which  the  above  letter 
refers,  were  to  the  effect  that  one  of  Lewes's  great  ad- 
vantages in  scientific  and  philosophical  research  was  his 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  works  of  German  and 
French  writers,  which  enabled  him  to  follow  the  contempo- 
raneous movement  of  science  throughout  Europe,  whereas 
many  writers  of  learning  and  ability  wasted  their  own 
and  their  readers'  time  in  investigating  questions  already 
fully  investigated  elsewhere,  and  advancing  theories  which 
had  been  previously  proved  or  disproved  without  their 
knowledge.  Dr.  Ludwig  Ilaller,  of  Berlin,  in  writing  to 
me  about  G.  H.  Lewes,  then  recently  deceased,  had  said, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  that  he  had  some  intention  of  pub- 
lishing a  sketch  of  Lewes  in  some  German  periodical.  I 
am  not  aware  whether  this  intention  was  ever  carried  into 
effect. 

The  attack  to  which  the  above  letter  alludes  was  a  very 
bad  one  of  sciatica.  At  length  the  baths  of  Baden  in 
Switzerland  cured  me  permanently,  but  after  their — it  is 
said  ordinary  and  normal,  but  very  perverse— fashion, 
having  first  made  me  incorapai'ably  worse.  I  suffered 
excruciatingly,  consolingly  (!)  assured  by  the  doctor  that 
sciatica  never  kills— only  makes  you  wish  that  it  would ! 
While  I  was  at  the  worst  my  brother  came  to  Baden  to 
see  me,  and  on  leaving  me  after  a  couple  of  days,  wrote 
to  my  wife  the  following  letter,  which  I  confiscated  and 
keep  as  a  memorial. 

After  expressing  his  commiseration  for  me,  he  contin- 
ues : 

"  For  you,  I  cannot  tell  you  tlie  admiration  I  have  for  you.  Your  affec- 
tion and  care  and  as.sidnity  were  to  be  expected.  I  knew  you  well  enough 
to  take  them  as  a  matter  of  course  from  you  to  him.  But  your  mental 
and  phy.sical  capacity,  your  power  of  sustaining  him  by  your  own  cheer- 
fulness, and  supporting  him  by  your  own  attention,  are  marvellous.  When 
I  consider  all  the  circumstances,  I  hardly  know  how  to  reconcile  so  much 
love  with  so  much  self-control." 


Every  word  true  !    And  what  he  saw  for  a  few  h 


ours 


LETTERS  FROM   MR.  AXD   MRS.  LEWES.  487 

in  each  of  a  couple  of  days  I  saw  every  hour  of  llie  day 
I  md  niglit  for  four  terrible  months. 

But  all  this  is  a  parenthesis  into  which  I  have  been  led, 
I  hope  excusably,  by  Mrs.  Lewes's  mention  of  my  illness. 

N.B. — I  said  at  an  early  page  of  these  recollections  that 
I  had  never  been  confined  to  my  bed  by  illness  for  a  single 
dav  durins:  more  than  sixty  vears.  The  above-mentioned 
illness  leaves  the  statement  still  true.  The  sciatica  Avas 
bad,  but  never  kept  me  in  bed.  Indeed,  I  was  perhaps 
in  less  torment  out  of  it. 

Here  is  the  last  letter  of  George  Eliot's  which  reached 
us.  It  is  written  by  Mrs.  Lewes  to  my  wife,  from  "  The 
Priory,  30  December,  1879  :" 

"  Deaii  Mrs.  Tkollope, — I  enclose  the  best  photograph  within  my  reach. 
To  me  all  portraits  of  him  are  objectionable,  beeau.se  I  see  him  more  viv- 
idly and  truly  without  them.  But  I  think  liiis  is  the  most  like  what  he 
was  as  you  knew  him.  I  have  sent  your  anecdote  about  the  boy  to  Mr. 
Du  Maurier,  whom  it  will  suit  exactly.  I  asked  Charles  Lewes  to  copy 
it  from  your  letter  with  your  own  pretty  words  of  introduction. 

"  Yours  affectionately,  M.  E.  Lkwes." 

It  is  pretty  well  too  late  in  the  day  for  me  to  lament 
the  loss  of  old  friends.  Thc}^  have  been  well-nigh  some 
lime  past  all  gone.  I  have  been  exceptionally  fortunate 
in  an  aftermath  belonging  to  a  younger  generation.  But 
they  too  are  dro])j)ing  around  me  !  And  few  losses  from 
this  second  crop  have  left  a  more  regretted  void  than 
George  Henry  Lewes  and  his  wife. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

MY   MOTHER. — LETTERS   OF    MARY    MITFORD. LETTERS    OF 

T.  C.    GRATTAlSr. 

I  HAVE  thought  that  it  might  he  more  convenient  to 
the  reader  to  have  the  letters  contained  in  the  foresroinar 
chapter  all  together,  and  have  not  interrupted  them  there- 
fore to  speak  of  any  of  the  events  which  were  meantime 
happening  in  my  own  life. 

But  during  the  period  which  the  letters  cover  the  two 
greatest  sorrows  of  my  life  had  fallen  upon  me — I  had 
lost  first  my  mother,  then  my  wife. 

The  bereavement,  however,  was  very  different  in  tlie 
two  cases.  If  my  mother  had  died  a  dozen  years  earlier  I 
should  have  felt  the  loss  as  the  end  of  all  things  to  me — 
as  leaving  me  desolate  and  causing  a  void  which  nothino- 
could  ever  fill.  But  when  she  died  at  eighty-three  she 
had  lived  her  life,  upon  the  Avhole  a  very  happy  one,  to 
the  happiness  of  which  I  had  (and  have)  the  satisfaction 
of  believing  I  largely  contributed. 

It  is  very  common  for  a  mother  and  daughter  to  live 
during  many  years  of  life  together  in  as  close  companion- 
ship as  I  lived  with  my  mother,  but  it  is  not  common  for 
a  son  to  do  so.  During  many  years,  and  many,  many 
journeyings,  and  more  ttte-il-iete  walks,  and  yet  more  of 
ttte-dttte  home  hours,  we  were  inse])arable  companions 
and  friends.  I  can  truly  say  that,  from  the  time  when 
we  put  our  horses  together  on  my  return  from  Birming- 
liam  to  the  time  of  my  marriage,  she  was  all  in  all  to  me. 
During  some  four  or  five  days  in  the  early  time  of  our 
residence  at  Florence  I  thought  I  was  going  to  lose  her, 
and  I  can  never  forget  the  blank  wretchedness  of  the  pros- 
pect that  seemed  to  be  before  me. 

She  bad  a  very  serious  illness,  and  was,  as  I  had  subse- 


MY  MOTHER.  489 

quently  reason  to  believe,  very  mistakenly  treated.  She 
was  attended  by  a  practitioner  of  the  old  school,  who  had 
at  that  time  the  leading  practice  in  Florence.  He  was  a 
very  good  fellow,  and  an  admirable  whist-player  ;  and  I 
do  not  think  the  members  of  our  little  colony  drew  a  suf- 
ficiently sharp  line  of  division  between  his  social  and  his 
professional  qualifications.  He  was,  as  I  have  said,  essen- 
tially a  man  of  the  (even  then)  old  school,  and  retained 
the  old-fashioned  general  practitioner's  phraseology.  I 
remember  his  once  mortally  disgusting  an  unhappy  dys- 
pe))tic  old  lady  by  asking  her,  "  Do  we  go  to  our  dinner 
with  glee?"  As  if  the  poor  soul  had  ever  done  anything 
with  glee  ! 

This  gentleman  had  bled  my  mother,  and  had  appointed 
another  bleedintj  for  the  eveninc:.  I  believe  she  would 
assuredly  have  died  if  that  had  been  done,  and  I  attribute 
to  Lord  Holland  the  saving  of  her.  Her  doctor  had  very 
wrongly  resisted  the  calling  in  of  other  English  advice, 
professional  jealousy,  and  indeed  enmity,  running  high 
just  then  among  us.  Lord  Holland  came  to  the  house 
just  in  the  nick  of  time  ;  and  overruling  authoritatively 
all  the  ditliculties  raised  by  the  Esculapius  in  possession  of 
the  field,  insisted  on  at  once  sending  his  own  medical  at- 
tendant. The  result  was  the  immediate  administration  of 
port  wine  instead  of  phlebotomy,  and  the  patient's  rapid 
recovery. 

My  mother  was  at  the  time  far  past  taking  any  part  in 
the  discussion  of  the  medical  measures  to  be  adopted  in 
her  case.  But  I  am  not  witliout  a  suspicion  that  she  too, 
if  she  couhl  liave  been  consulted,  would  have  sided  with 
phlebotomy  and  whist,  as  against  modern  ])ractioc  unre- 
lieved by  any  such  alleviation.  For  the  phlebotomist  had 
been  a  constant  attendant  at  lier  Friday  night  whist-table; 
and  as  it  was  she  lost  liim,  for  lie  naturally  was  offended 
at  her  recovery  under  rival  hands. 

What  my  mother  ims  I  have  already  said  enough  to 
hIiow,  as  far  as  my  iinjierfect  words  can  show  it,  in  divers 
passages  of  these  reminiscences.  She  was  the  happiest- 
natured  person  I  ever  knew — liapjiy  in  the  intense  power 
of  enjovment,  happier  still  in  the  conscious  exercise  of  the 
21* 


490  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

power  of  makinor  otlicrs  bappy  ;  and  this  continued  to  be 
the  case  till  nearly  the  end.  During  the  last  few  years 
the  bright  lamp  began  to  grow  dim  and  gradually  sink 
into  the  socket.  She  suffered  but  little  physically,  but 
she  lost  her  memory,  and  then  gradually  more  and 
more  the  powers  of  her  mind  generally.  I  have  often 
thought  that  this  perishing  of  the  mind  before  the  excep- 
tionalh'  healthy  and  well-constituted  physical  frame  in 
which  it  was  housed  may  have  been  due  to  the  tremen- 
dous strain  to  which  she  was  subjected  during  those  terri- 
ble months  at  Bruges,  when  she  was  watching  the  dying 
bed  of  a  much-loved  son  during  the  day,  and,  dieted  on 
green  tea  and  laudanum,  was  writing  iiction  most  part  of 
the  night.  The  cause,  if  such  were  the  case,  would  have 
preceded  the  effect  by  some  forty  years  ;  but  whether  it 
is  on  the  cards  to  suppose  that  such  an  effect  may  have 
been  produced  after  such  a  length  of  time,  I  have  not 
physiological  knowledge  enough  to  tell. 

She  was,  I  think,  to  an  exceptional  degree  surrounded 
by  very  many  friends,  mostly  women,  but  including  many 
men,  at  every  period  of  her  life.  But  the  circumstances  of 
it  caused  the  world  of  her  intimates  during  her  youth, 
her  middle  life,  and  her  old  age  to  be  to  a  great  degree 
peopled  by  different  figures. 

She  was  during  all  her  life  full  of,  and  fond  of,  fun  ;  had 
an  exquisite  sense  of  humor  ;  and  at  all  times  valued  her 
friends  and  acquaintances  more  exclusively,  I  think,  than 
most  people  do,  for  their  intrinsic  qualities,  mainly  those 
of  heart,  and  not  so  much  perhaps  intellect,  accurately 
speaking,  as  brightness.  There  is  a  passage  in  my  broth- 
er's "Autobiography"  which  grates  upon  my  mind,  and, 
I  think,  very  signally  fails  to  hit  the  mark. 

He  writes  (])p.  19,  20):  "  She  had  loved  society,  affecting 
a  somewhat  Liberal  role,  and  professing  an  emotional  dis- 
like to  tyrants,  Avhich  sprung  from  the  wrongs  of  would-be 
regicides  and  the  poverty  of  patriot  exiles.  An  Italian 
marquis  who  had  escaped  with  only  a  second  shirt  from 
the  clutches  of  some  archduke  whom  he  had  wished  to  ex- 
terminate, or  a  French  /jro^etoiVd  with  distant  ideas  of 
sacrificing  himself  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  were  always 


MY  MOTHER.  491 

welcome  to  the  modest  hospitality  of  her  house.  In  af- 
ter-years, when  marquises  of  another  cast  had  been  £^ra- 
cious  to  her,  she  became  a  strong  Tory,  and  thouglit  that 
archduchesses  were  sweet.  But  with  her  politics  were 
always  au  affair  of  the  heart,  as  indeed  were  all  her  con- 
victions. Of  reasoninG:  from  causes  I  think  that  she  knew 
nothing." 

Now  there  is  hardly  a  word  of  this  in  which  Anthony 
is  not  more  or  less  mistaken  ;  and  that  simply  because  he 
had  not  adequate  opportunities  for  close  observation.  The 
affection  which  subsisted  between  my  mother  and  my 
brother  Anthonv  was  from  the  befjinnins:  to  the  end  of 
their  lives  as  tender  and  as  warm  as  ever  existed  between 
a  mother  and  son.  Indeed,  I  remember  that  in  the  old 
days  of  our  youth  we  used  to  consider  Anthony  the  Ben- 
jamin. But  from  the  time  that  he  became  a  clerk  in  the 
post-office  to  her  death,  he  and  my  mother  were  never 
together  but  as  visitors  during  the  limited  period  of  a 
visit.  From  the  time  that  I  resigned  my  position  at  Bir- 
mingham to  the  time  of  her  death,  I  was  uninterruptedly 
an  inmate  of  her  house,  or  she  of  mine.  And  I  think  that 
I  knew  her  as  few  sons  know  their  mothers. 

No  regicide,  would-be  or  other,  ever  darkened  her  doors. 
No  French  proletaire,  or  other  French  political  refugee 
was  ever  among  her  guests.  She  never  was  acquainted 
with  any  Italian  marquis  who  had  escaped  in  any  degree 
of  distress  from  poverty.  With  General  Pepe  she  was 
intimate  for  years.  But  of  him  the  world  knows  enough 
to  perceive  that  my  brother  cannot  have  alluded  to  him. 
And  I  recollect  no  other  maripiis.  It  is  very  true  that  in 
the  old  Keppe]  Street  anil  Harrow  days  several  Italian 
exiles,  and  I  think  some  Spaniards,  used  to  be  her  occa- 
sional guests.  This  had  come  to  pass  by  means  of  her 
intimacy  with  Lady  Dyer,  tlie  wife  and  subsetpieiitly  w  id- 
ow  of  Sir  Thomas  Dyer,  whose  years  of  foreign  service 
had  interested  him  ami  her  \n  many  sueh  persons.  The 
friends  of  l»er  friend  weri-  her  frit-nds.  'IMiey  were  not 
such  by  virtue  of  their  political  ])Ositionand  ideas.  Tliough 
it  is  no  doubt  true,  that  earing  little  about  jiolitics,  and  in  a 
jesting  way  (how  jesting  many  a  memorial  of  fun  between 


492  WHAT  I   REMEMBER. 

her  and  Lady  Dyer,  and  Miss  Gabcll,  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
Gabell  of  Winchester,  is  still  extant  in  my  hands  to  prove), 
the  general  tone  of  the  house  was  "  Liberal."  But  noth- 
ing can  be  farther  from  the  truth  than  the  idea  that  my 
mother  was  led  to  become  a  Tory  by  the  "  graciousness  " 
of  any  "marquises"  or  great  folks  of  any  kind.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  there  was  one  great  personage,  whose 
(not  graciousness,  but)  intellectual  influence  did  impel  her 
mind  in  a  Conservative  direction.  And  this  was  Metter- 
nicli.  She  had  more  talk  with  him  than  her  book  on  Vien- 
na would  lead  a  reader  to  suppose  ;  and  very  far  more  of 
his  mind  and  influence  reached  her  through  the  medium 
of  the  princess. 

To  how  great  a  degree  this  is  likely  to  have  been  the 
case  may  be  in  some  measure  perceived  from  a  letter  which 
the  princess  addressed  to  my  mother  shortly  after  she  had 
left  Vienna.  She  preserved  it  among  a  few  others,  which 
she  specially  valued,  and  I  ti-anscribe  it  from  the  original 
now  before  me. 

"  Vous  ne  pourriez  croire,  chfcre  Madame  Trollope,  combien  le  portrait 
que  vous  avez  cliarge  le  Baron  niigel  de  me  remeltre  m'a  fait  de  plaisir ! 

"  II  y  a  longtemps  que  je  cacliais  au  fonds  de  mon  coeur  le  desir  de  pos- 
s^der  votre  portrait,  qui,  interressant  pour  le  monde,  est  devenu  precicux 
pour  moi,  puisque  j'ai  le  plaisir  de  vous  connaltre  telle  que  vous  etes,  bonne, 
simple,  bienveillante,  et  loin  de  tout  ce  qui  effroie  et  cloigne  des  reputations 
lit6raires.  Je  remercie  M.  Hervieu  de  I'avoir  fait  aussi  ressemblant.  Et 
je  vous  assure,  ehfere  Madame  Trollope,  que  rien  ne  pouvait  me  toucher 
aussi  vivement  et  me  faire  autant  de  plaisir  que  ce  souvenir  vcnant  de 
vous,  qui  me  rappelera  sans  cesse  les  bons  moments  que  j'ai  eu  la  satis- 
faction de  passer  avec  vous  et  qui  restcront  h.  jamais  chores  h.  ma  mcmoire. 

"  Melanie,  Pkincesse  De  Metteunich." 

I  think  that  the  hours  passed  by  the  princess  and  my 
mother  ttte-d-tilte,  save  for  the  presence  of  the  artist  occu- 
pied by  his  work  during  the  painting  of  the  Princess  Me- 
lanie's  portrait  for  ray  mother,  were  mainly  the  cause  of 
the  real  intimacy  of  mind  and  affection  which  grew  up 
between  them — though,  of  course,  the  painting  of  the 
portrait  shows  that  a  considerable  intimacy  had  previously 
arisen.  And  it  had  been  arranged  that  the  portrait  of  my 
mother,  which  was  the  occasion  of  the  above  letter,  should 
be  exchanged  for  that  of  the  princess.     But  there  had 


MY   MOTHER.  493 

been  no  time,  amid  the  whirl  of  the  Vienna  gayeties,  to 
get  it  executed.  It  was,  therefore,  sent  from  England  by 
Baron  Ilugel  when  he  called  on  my  mother,  on  visiting 
this  country  shortly  after  her  return  from  Austria. 

It  occurs  to  me  here  to  mention  a  circumstance  which 
was,  I  think,  the  first  thing  to  begin — not  the  acquaint- 
ance but — the  intimacy  in  question;  and  which  may  be 
related  as  possessing  an  interest  not  confined  to  either  of 
the  ladies  in  question. 

The  Archduchess  Sophie  had  graciously  intimated  her 
desire  that  my  mother  should  be  presented  to  her,  and  an 
evening  had  been  named  for  the  purpose.  But  a  few  days 
before  —  just  three,  if  I  remember  rightly  —  my  mother 
caught  a  cold,  which  resulted  in  erysipelas,  causing  her 
head  to  become  swollen  to  nearly  double  its  usual  size. 
Great  was  the  dismay  of  the  ladies  who  had  arranged  the 
meetincr  with  the  archduchess,  chief  amoncj  whom  had  been 
the  Princess  Melanie.  She  came  to  my  mother,  and  in- 
sisted ujion  sending  to  her  an  old  homoeopathic  physician, 
who  was  her  own  medical  attendant,  and  had  been  Hahne- 
mann's favorite  pupil.  He  came,  saw  his  patient,  and  was 
told  that  what  he  had  to  do  was  to  make  her  presentable 
by  the  following  Friday  !  He  shook  his  head,  said  the 
time  was  too  short — but  he  would  do  his  best.  And  the 
desired  object  was  fu/li/  attained. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  my  mother  returned  from  her  Vi- 
enna visit  a  more  strongly  convinced  Conservative  in  )>oli- 
tics  than  she  had  hitherto  been.  And  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  that  the  modificatitm  of  her  opinions  in  that  direction, 
which  was  doubtless  largely  operated  by  conversation  with 
the  great  Conservative  statesman  and  his  alter  ego,  the 
princess,  needs  to  be  in  any  degree  attributed  to  the 
"graciousness  "  of  people  in  high  position,  I'ither  male  or 
female.  Is  it  not  very  intelligihli'  and  very  likely  that 
such  opinions,  so  set  forth,  as  she  from  day  to  day  heard 
them,  shotild  have  honestly  ami  legitimately  influenced 
her  own  ? 

But  I  think  that  I  should  In-  speaking,  if  perhaps  jire- 
Huraptuously,  yet  truly,  if  I  were  to  add  that  there  was 
also  one  very  far  from  great  personage,  whose  inlluenco 


494  WHAT   I   REMEMBKK. 

in  the  same  direction  was  greater  than  even  that  of  Prince 
3[etternich  or  of  any  other  great  folks  wlialever;  and  that 
Avas  the  son  in  daily  and  almost  hourly  connnunion  and 
conversation  Avith  whom  she  lived.  I  also  had  begun 
life  as  a  "  Liberal,"  and  was  such  in  the  days  when  jMr. 
Gladstone  was  a  high  Tory.  But  my  mind  had  long  been 
travelling  in  an  inverse  direction  to  his.  And  far  too 
larue  a  number  of  my  contemporaries,  distinguished  and 
undistinguished,  have  been  moving  in  the  same  direction 
for  it  to  be  at  all  necessary  to  say  that  most  assuredly  my 
slowly  maturing  convictions  were  neither  generated  nor 
fostered  by  any  "graciousness  "  or  other  influence  of  dukes 
or  duchesses  or  great  })eople  of  any  sort. 

That  my  mother's  political  ideas  were  in  no  degree  "  an 
affair  of  the  heart,"  I  will  not  say,  and  by  no  means  regret 
not  being  able  to  say.  But  I  cannot  but  assert  that  it  is 
a  great  mistake  to  say  that  they  were  uninfluenced  by 
"  reasoning  from  causes,"  or  that  the  movement  of  her 
mind  in  this  respect  was  in  any  degree  whatever  due  to 
the  caresses  which  my  brother  imagines  to  have  caused  it. 

She  was  not  a  great  or  careful  preserver  of  papers  and 
letters,  or  I  might  have  been  able  to  ])rint  here  very  many 
communications  from  persons  in  whom  the  world  feels  an 
interest.  Among  her  early  and  very  dear  friends  w^as  Mary 
Mitford. 

I  have  a  very  vivid  remembrance  of  the  appearance  of 
Marv  Russell  Mitford  as  I  used  to  see  her  on  the  occasions 
of  my  visits  to  Reading,  where  my  grandfather's  second 
wife  and  then  widow  was  residing.  She  was  not  corpu- 
lent, but  her  figure  gave  one  the  idea  of  almost  cubical 
solidity.  She  had  a  round  and  red  full-moon  sort  of  face, 
from  the  ample  forehead  above  which  the  hair  was  all 
dragged  back  and  stowed  away  under  a  small  and  close- 
fitting  cap,  which,  surrounding  her  face,  increased  the  ef- 
fect of  full-blown  rotundity.  But  the  gray  eye  and  even 
the  little  snub  nose  were  full  of  drollery  and  humor,  and 
the  lines  about  the  generally  somewhat  closely-shut  mouth 
indicated  unmistakable  intellectual  power.  There  is  a  sin- 
f'ular  resemblance  between  her  handwriting  and  that  of 
my  mother.     Very  numerous  letters  must  have  passed  be- 


LETTERS  OF  MARY    MlTFOliD.  495 

tween  them.    But  of  all  tlicse  I  have  been  able  to  find  but 
four. 

On  the  3d  of  April,  1832,  she  writes  from  the  "  Three 
Mile  Cross,"  so  familiar  to  many  readers,  as  follows  : 

"  My  dear  Mks.  Trollopk, — I  tliank  you  most  sincerely  for  your  very 
delightful  book,  as  well  as  for  its  great  kiminess  towards  me  ;  and  I  wish 
you  joy,  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  of  the  splendid  success  which  has 
not  merely  attended  but  awaited  its  career — a  happy  and,  I  trust,  certain 
augury  of  your  literary  good-fortune  in  every  line  which  you  may  pursue. 
I  assure  you  that  my  political  prejudices  are  by  no  means  shocked  at 
your  dislike  of  Republicanism.  I  was  always  a  very  aristocratic  Whig, 
and  since  these  reforming  days  am  well-nigh  become  a  stanch  Tory,  for 
pretty  nearly  the  same  reason  that  converted  you — a  dislike  to  mobs  in 
action.  .  .  .  Refinement  follows  wealth,  but  not  often  closely,  as  witness 
the  parvenu  people  in  dear  England.  ...  I  lieard  of  your  plunge  into 
the  Backwoods  first  from  Mr.  Owen  himself,  with  whom  I  foregathered 
three  years  ago  in  London,  and  of  whom  you  have  given  so  very  true  and 
graphic  a  {)icture.  What  extraordinary  mildness  and  plausibility  that 
man  possesses  !  I  never  before  saw  an  instance  of  actual  wildness — mad- 
ness of  theory  accompanied  by  such  suavity  and  soberness  of  manner. 
Did  you  see  my  friend,  Miss  Sedgwick  ?  Her  letters  show  a  large  and 
amiable  mind,  and  a  little  niece  of  nine  years  old,  who  generally  writes  in 
them,  has  a  style  very  unusual  in  so  young  a  girl,  and  yet  most  useful  and 
natural  too.  .  .  .  Can  you  tell  me  if  Mr.  Flint  be  the  author  of  'George 
Mason,  or  the  Young  Backwoodsman '  ?  I  think  that  he  is  ;  and  whether 
the  name  of  a  young  satirical  writer  be  Sams  or  Sands  ?  Your  answering 
these  questions  will  stead  me  much,  and  I  am  sure  that  you  will  answer 
them  if  you  can. 

"  Now  to  your  kin<l  questions  I  am  getting  ready  a  fifth  and  last  vol- 
ume of  'Our  Village'  as  fast  as  1  can,  though  with  pain  and  dillicully, 
having  hurt  my  left  hand  so  much  by  a  fall  from  an  open  carriage  that 
it  affects  the  right,  and  makes  writing  very  unconifortalile  to  me.  And  I 
an)  in  a  most  perplexed  state  al)OUt  my  opera,  not  knowing  whether  it  will 
be  produced  ihi.s  season  or  not,  in  consequence  of  Captain  Polhill  and  his 
singers  having  parted.  This  wouM  not  have  happened  had  my  coadjutor 
the  composer  kept  to  his  lime.  And  1  have  slill  lio|)es  that  when  the  ojiera 
be  [shall,  omitted  probably]  taken  in  (the  music  is  even  now  not  finished), 
a  Sense  of  interest  will  bring  the  parties  together  again.  I  hope  that  it 
nuiy,  for  it  will  not  only  be  11  tremendous*  hit  for  all  of  us,  but  it  will  take 
me  to  Loniiou  and  give  me  the  pleasure  of  a  peep  at  you,  a  happiness  to 
wliieh  I  liM>k  forward  very  anxiously.  1  know  Mr.  Tom,  anci  like  him  of 
all  things,  as  everybixiy  who  kiu)ws  him  must,  and  I  hear  that  his  si>ters 
arc  charming.  (><m1  bless  you,  my  dear  frieml.  My  father  joins  me  in 
every  good  wish,  and 

"  I  am  ever  n»08t  afTectioiiately  yours, 

•    M     H.  MlTKOKD." 


496  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

A  few  weeks  later  she  writes  a  very  long  letter  almost 
entirely  tilled  witli  a  discussion  of  the  desirability  or  non- 
desirability  of  writing  in  this,  that,  and  the  other  "annual " 
or  magazine.  Most  of  those  she  alludes  to  are  dead,  and 
there  is  no  interest  in  preserving  her  mainly  unfavorable 
remarks  concerning  them  and  their  editors  and  publishers. 
One  sentence,  however,  is  so  singularly  and  amusingly 
suggestive  of  change  in  men  and  women  and  things  that 
I  must  give  it.  After  reviewing  a  great  number  of  the 
leading  monthlies,  she  says,  "  as  for  J^raser^s  and  JBlack- 
woocFs,  they  are  hardly  such  as  a  lady  likes  to  write  for !" 

After  advising  my  mother  to  stick  to  writing  novels, 
she  says  : 

"  I  have  not  a  doubt  tliut  that  is  by  far  the  most  profitable  brancli  of 
the  literary  profession.  If  ever  I  be  bold  enough  to  try  that  arduous  path, 
I  shall  endeavor  to  come  as  near  as  I  can  to  Miss  Austen,  my  idol.  You 
are  very  good  about  my  opera.  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you,  and  you  will  be 
sorry  to  hear,  that  the  composer  has  disappointed  me,  that  the  music  is 
not  even  yet  ready,  and  that  the  piece  is  therefore  necessarily  delayed  till 
next  season.  I  am  very  sorry  for  this  on  account  of  the  money,  and  be- 
cause I  have  many  friends  in  and  near  town,  yourself  among  the  rest, 
whom  I  was  desirous  to  see.  But  I  suppose  it  will  be  for  the  good  of  the 
opera  to  wait  till  the  beginning  of  a  season.  It  is  to  be  produced  with 
extraordinary  splendor,  and  will,  I  think,  bo  a  tremendous  hit.  I  hope 
also  to  have  a  tragedy  out  at  nearly  the  same  time  in  the  autumn,  and 
tJieti  I  trust  we  shall  meet,  and  I  shall  see  your  dear  girls. 

"  How  glad  I  am  to  find  that  you  partake  of  my  great  aversion  to  the 
Bort  of  puffery  belonging  to  literature.  I  hate  it!  and  always  did,  and 
love  you  all  the  better  for  partaking  of  my  feeling  on  the  subject.  I  be- 
lieve that  with  me  it  is  pride  that  revolts  at  the  trash.  And  then  it  is  so 
false ;  the  people  are  so  clearly  flattering  to  be  flattered.    Oh,  I  hate  it ! ! ! 

"  Make  my  kindest  regards  [.s?V]  and  accept  my  father's. 

"  Ever  most  faithfully  and  affectionately  yours, 

"  M.  R.  MiTFORD. 

"  P.S. — I  suppose  my  book  will  be  out  in  about  a  month.  I  shall  desire 
Whittaker  to  send  you  a  copy.     It  is  the  fifth  and  last  volume." 

The  following  interesting  letter,  fraidced  by  her  friend 
Talfourd,  and  shown  only  by  the  postmark  to  have  been 
Ijosted  on  the  20th  of  June,  183G,  is  apparently  only  part 
of  a  letter,  for  it  is  written  upon  one  page,  and  the  two 
"turnovers  "  only;  and  begins  abruptly  : 

"  My  being  in  London  this  year  seems  very  uncertain,  although  if  Mr. 


LETTERS   OF  MARY   MITFORD.  497 

Sergeant  Talfourd's  "Ion"  be  played,  as  I  believe  it  will,  for  Mr.  Ma- 
cready's  benefit,  I  shall  hardly  be  able  to  resist  the  temptation  of  going 
up  for  a  very  few  days  to  be  present  upon  that  occasion.  But  I  scarcely 
ever  stir.  I  am  not  strong,  and  am  subject  to  a  painful  complaint  which 
renders  the  service  of  a  maid  indispensable  not  only  to  my  comfort  but  to 
my  health ;  and  tliat,  besides  the  expense,  has  an  appearance  of  fuss  and 
finery  to  which  I  have  a  great  objection,  and  to  which,  indeed,  I  have 
from  station  no  claim.  My  fatiier,  too,  hates  to  be  left  even  for  a  day. 
And  splendid  old  man  as  he  is  in  his  healthful  and  vigorous  age,  I  cannot 
but  recollect  that  he  is  seventy-five,  and  that  he  is  my  only  tie  upon  earth 
— the  only  relation  (except,  indeed,  a  few  very  distant  cousins,  Russells, 
Greys,  Ogles,  and  Deans,  whom  I  am  too  proud  and  too  poor  to  hook  on 
upon),  my  only  relation  in  the  wide  world.  This  is  a  desolate  view  of 
things;  but  it  explains  a  degree  of  clinging  to  that  one  most  precious  par- 
ent which  people  can  hardly  comprehend.  You  can  scarcely  imagine  how 
fine  an  old  man  he  is ;  how  clear  of  head  and  warm  of  heart.  He  almost 
wept  over  your  letter  to-day,  and  reads  your  book  with  singular  delight  and 
satisfaction,  in  s{)ite  of  the  difference  in  politics.  He  feels  strongly,  and 
60, 1  assure  you,  do  I,  your  kind  mention  of  me  and  my  poor  writings — a 
sort  of  testimony  always  gratifying,  but  doubly  so  when  the  distinguished 
writer  is  a  dear  friend.  Even  in  tliis  desolation,  your  success — that  of 
your  last  work  ["  Paris  and  the  Parisians  "]  especially  must  be  satisfac- 
tory to  you.  I  have  no  doubt  that  two  volumes  on  Italy  will  prove  eciually 
delightful  to  your  readers,  while  the  journey  will  be  the  best  possible  rem- 
edy for  all  that  you  have  suffered  in  spirits  and  health. 

"  I  am  attempting  a  novel,  for  which  Messieurs  Saunders  k  Ottley  have 
agreeil  to  give  £100.  It  is  to  be  ready  some  time  in  September — I  mean 
tiie  MS. — and  I  am  most  anxious  upon  every  account  to  make  it  as  good 
as  possible,  one  very  great  reason  being  the  fair,  candid,  and  liberal  con- 
duct of  the  intended  publishers.  I  shall  do  my  very  best.  Shall  I,  do  you 
think,  succeed  ?  I  take  for  granted  that  our  loss  is  your  gain,  and  that 
you  sec  Mr.  Milman  and  liis  charming  wife,  who  will,  I  am  sure,  sympa- 
thize most  sincerely  in  your  present  •  atliiction. 

"Adieu,  my  dear  friend.  I  am  tying  myself  up  from  letter-writing  until 
I  have  finished  my  novel,  wliile  I  cannot  but  hope  for  one  line  from  you 
to  say  that  you  are  recovering.  Letters  to  me  may  always  be  enclosed  to 
Mr.  Sergeant  Talfourd,  M.P.,  2  Elm  Court,  Tem|)le.  Even  if  he  be  on  cir- 
cuit, they  will  reaili  me  after  a  short  delay.  God  bless  you  all.  My  father 
joins  heartily  141  this  prayer,  with 

"Your  faithful  and  affeelioimtc 

"M.    1:.    MlTKOKP." 

Tlio  noxt,  aivl  last  wliidi  I  have  found,  i.s  t'lilircly  un- 
dated, but  postmarked  L'Uth  April,  1h;!7  : 

•  Jlr.  Milmnn  had  ^c^^iL^led  rece?itly  tlie  incumbency  of  n  parish  in  Read- 
ing.  My  iinilher'!i  aflliction  alluded  to  was  the  death  of  her  youngest 
daughter,  Emily. 


498  "WHAT   1    REMEMBER. 

""SIy  dkak  FiUEvn, — I  don't  know  when  a  trifle  has  pleased  me  so  much 
as  the  coincidence  which  set  us  a-writing  to  each  otlier  just  at  the  same 
time.  I  have  all  the  north-country  superstition  flowing  through  my  veins, 
and  do  really  believe  in  the  exploded  doctrine  of  sympathies.  That  is  to 
say,  I  believe  in  all  ffcnial  superstitions,  and  don't  like  this  steam-packet 
railway  world  of  ours,  which  puts  aside  with  so  much  scorn  that  wliich  for 
certain  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson  held  for  true.  I  am  charmed  at  your 
own  account  of  yourself  and  your  doings.  Mr.  Edward  Konyon— (wiiose 
brother,  John  Kenyon,  of  Harley  Place,  the  most  delightful  man  in  Lon- 
don—of course,  you  know  him — is  my  especial  friend) — Mr.  Edward  Ken- 
yon, who  lives  chiefly  at  Vienna,  although,  I  believe,  in  great  retirement, 
spending  £200  upon  himself,  and  giving  away  £2000— Mr.  Edward  Ken- 
yon spoke  of  you  to  me  as  having  such  opportunities  of  knowing  both  the 
city  and  the  country  as  rarely  befell  even  a  resident,  and  what  you  say  of 
the  peasantry  gives  me  a  strong  desire  to  see  your  book. 

"A  happy  subject  is  in  my  mind,  a  great  thing,  especially  for  you  whose 
descriptions  are  so  graphic.  The  thing  that  would  interest  me  in  Austria, 
and  for  the  maintenance  of  which  one  almost  pardons  (not  quite)  their 
retaining  that  other  old-fashioned  thing,  the  state  prisons,  is  their  having 
kept  up  in  their  splendor  those  grand  old  monasteries,  wliich  are  swept 
away  now  in  Spain  and  Portugal.  I  have  a  passion  for  Gothic  architecture, 
and  a  leaning  towards  the  magnificence  of  the  old  religion,  the  foster-mother 
of  all  that  is  finest  and  highest  in  art ;  and  if  I  have  such  a  thing  as  a  liter- 
ary project,  it  is  to  write  a  romance  of  which  Reading  Abbey  in  its  primal 
magnificence  should  form  a  part,  not  the  least  about  forms  of  faith,  under- 
stand, but  as  an  element  of  the  picturesque,  and  as  embodying  a  very  grand 
and  influential  part  of  bygone  days.  At  present  I  have  just  finished  (since 
writing  '  Country  Stories,'  which  people  seem  so  good  as  to  like)  writing 
all  the  prose  (except  one  story  about  the  fashionable  subject  of  Egyptian 
magicians,  furnished  to  me  by  your  admirer,  Henry  Chorley ;  I  wish  you 
had  seen  him  taking  off  his  hat  to  the  walls  as  I  showed  him  your  father's 
old  residence  at  Heckfield),  all  the  prose  of  the  most  splendid  of  the  an- 
imals, Finden's  '  Tableaux,'  of  which  my  longest  and  best  story— a  Young 
Pretender  story — I  have  been  obliged  to  omit  in  consequence  of  not  cal- 
culating on  the  length  of  my  poetical  contributors.  But  my  poetry,  espe- 
cially that  by  that  woiulerful  young  creature  Mi.ss  Barrett,  Mr.  Kenyon,  and 
Mr.  Procter,  is  certainly  such  as  has  seldom  before  been  seen  in  an  annual, 
and  joined  with  Finden's  magnificenfengravings  ought  to  make  an  attrac- 
tive work.  . 

"  I  am  now  going  to  my  novel,  if  it  r'lease  God  to  grant  me  health.  For 
the  last  two  months  I  have  only  once  crossed  the  outer  threshold,  and, 
indeed,  I  have  never  been  a  day  well  since  the  united  effects  of  the  tragedy 
and  the  influenza  .  .  .  [word  destroyed  by  the  seal].  What  will  become 
of  that  poor  play  is  in  the  womb  of  time.  But  its  being  by  universal  ad- 
mission a  far  more  striking  drama  than  Rienzi,'  and  by  very  far  the  best 
thing  I  ever  wrote,  it  follows  almost,  of  course,  that  it  will  share  the  fate 
of  its  predecessor,  and  be  tossed  about  the  theatres  for  three  or  four  years 
to  come.     Of  course,  I  should  be  only  too  happy  that  it  should  be  brought 


LETTERS  OF  MARY  MITFORD.  499 

out  at  Covcnt  Garden  under  tlie  united  auspice-!  of  Mr.  Macrea<ly  and  Mr. 
Bartley.*  But  I  am  in  constitution  and  in  feeling  a  niueli  older  person 
than  you,  my  dear  friend,  as  well  as  in  look,  however  the  acknowledgment 
of  age  (I  am  48)  may  stand  between  us  ;  and  belonging  to  a  most  sanguine 
and  confiding  person,  I  am,  of  course,  as  prone  to  anticipate  all  probable 
evil  as  he  is  to  forestall  impossible  good.  He,  my  dear  father,  is,  I  thank 
Heaven,  splendidly  well.  He  speaks  of  you  always  with  much  delight,  is 
charmed  with  your  writings,  and  I  do  ho[)e  that  you  will  come  to  Reading 
and  give  him  as  well  as  me  the  great  pleasure  of  seeing  you  at  our  poor 
cottage  by  the  roadside.  You  would  like  my  flower-garden.  It  is  really  a 
flower-garden  becoming  a  duchess.  People  are  so  good  in  ministering  to 
this,  my  only  amusement.  And  the  elfeet  is  heightened  by  passing  through 
a  laborer's  cottage  to  get  at  it,  for  such  our  poor  hut  literally  is. 

"  You  have  heard,  I  suppose,  that  Mr.  Wordsworth's  eldest  son,  who 
married  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Curwen,  has  lost  nearly,  if  not  quite,  all  of  his 
wife's  portion  by  the  sea  flowing  in  upon  the  mine,  and  has  now  nothing 
left  but  a  living  of  £200  given  him  by  his  father-in-law.  So  are  we  all 
touched  ill  turn. 

''I  have  written  to  the  Sedgwicks  for  the  scarlet  lilies  mentioned  by 
Miss  Martineau  in  her  American  book.  Did  you  happen  to  see  them  in 
their  glory?  of  course  they  would  flourish  here;  and  having  sent  them 
primroses,  cowslips,  ivy,  and  many  other  English  wild  flowers,  which  took 
Theodore  Sedgwick's  fancy,  I  have  a  right  to  the  return.  How  glad  I  am 
to  hear  the  good  you  tell  me  of  my  friend  Tom.  Uis  fortune  seems  now 
assured.     My  father's  kindest  regards. 

"  Ever,  my  dear  friend, 

"  Very  faithfully  yours,  JI.  R.  Mitford. 

"  P.S. — Mr.  Carey,  the  translator  of  Dante,  has  just  been  here.  He  says 
that  he  visited  Cowjjer's  residence  at  Oliiey  lately,  and  that  his  garden 
r(X)iii,  which  suggested  mine,  is  incredibly  small,  and  not  near  so  pretty. 
Come  and  see.  Y'ou  know,  of  course,  that  the  'Modern  Antiques'  in  'Our 
Village'  were  Theodosia  and  Frances  Hill,  sisters  of  Joseph  Hill,  cousins 
and  friends  of  poor  Cowper." 

What  the  "good"  was  by  which  my  "fortune  was  as- 
sured" I  am  unable  to  guess,  lint  I  am  suil'  of  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  writer's  rejoieing  thereat. 

Mary  Mitfonl  was  a  genuinely  warni-heartid  woman, 
and  much  <»f  her  talk  w<iuld  probably  be  stigmatizeil  by  the 
young  gentlemen  of  tl>e  present  generation,  who  etinsider 
the  moral  temperature  of  a  ti.sh  to  be  "  good  form,"  as 
"gush."  How  old  Landor,  wliu  "gushed"  from  cradle  to 
grave,  wf)uld  have  massacred  and  rended  in  his  wrath  such 
talkers  !    Mary  Mitford's  "gu.sh  "  was  sincere  at  all  events. 

*  Thi.-<  gentleman  was  an  old  and  highly  valued  friend  of  my  mother. 


500  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

But  there  is  a  "  hall-mark  "  for  those  who  can  decipher  it, 
"without  which  none  is  genuine." 

A  considerable  intimacy  grew  up  between  my  mother 
and  the  author  of  "Highways  and  Byeways"  during  the 
latter  part  of  his  residence  in  England,  and  subsequently, 
when  returning  from  Boston  on  leave,  he  visited  Florence 
and  Rome.  Many  letters  passed  bet-ween  them  after  his 
establishment  as  British  consul  at  Boston,  some  charac- 
teristic selections  from  which  will,  I  doubt  not,  be  accept- 
able to  many  readers. 

The  following  was  written  on  the  envelope  enclosing  a 
very  long  letter  from  Mrs.  Grattan,  and  was  written,  I 
think,  in  1840  : 

"  I  cannot  avoid  squeezing  in  a  few  words  more  just  as  the  ship  is  on 
the  point  of  suiling  or  steaming  away  for  England.  .  .  .  'The  President' 
has  been  a  fatal  title  this  spring.  Poor  Harrison,  a  good  and  honest  man, 
died  in  a  month  after  he  was  elected,  and  this  fine  ship,  about  which  we 
have  been  at  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  so  painfully  excited  ever  since  March, 
is,  I  fear,  gone  down  with  its  gallant  captain  (Roberts,  with  whom  we 
crossed  the  Atlantic  in  the  British  Queen)  and  poor  Power,  whom  the  pub- 
lic cannot  afford  to  lose. 

"  Since  I  wrote  ray  letter  three  days  ago — pardon  the  boldly  original  topic 
— the  weather  has  mended  considerably.  Tell  Tom  that  every  tree  is  also 
striving  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf,  and  it  is  well  for  you  that  I  have  not  an- 
other to  turn  too.     God  bless  you.  T.  C.  G." 

I  beg  to  observe  that  the  exhortation  addressed  to  me 
had  no  moral  significance,  but  was  the  writer's  character- 
istic mode  of  exciting  me  to  new  scribblements. 

The  following,  also  written  on  the  envelope  enclosing  a 
letter  from  Mrs.  Grattan,  is  dated  the  30th  of  July,  1840: 

"  I  cannot  let  the  envelope  go  quite  a  blank,  though  I  cannot  quite  make 
it  a  prize.  ...  In  literature  I  have  done  nothing  but  write  a  preface  and 
notes  for  two  new  editions  of  the  old  "  Highways  and  Byeways,"  and  a 
short  sketchy  article  in  this  month's  number  of  the  North  American  Re- 
view on  the  present  state  of  Ireland.  I  am  going  to  follow  it  up  in  the 
next  number  in  reference  to  the  state  of  the  Irish  in  America,  and  I  hope 
I  shall  thus  do  son)e  good  to  a  subject  I  have  much  at  heart.  I  have  had 
various  applications  to  deliver  lectures  at  iyceums,  etc.,  and  to  preside  at 
public  meetings  for  various  objects.  All  this  I  have  declined.  I  have 
been  very  much  before  the  public  at  dinners  for  various  purposes,  and  have 
refused  many  invitations  to  several  neighboring  cities.  I  must  now  draw 
back  a  little.  I  think  I  have  hitherto  done  good  to  the  cause  of  peace  and 
friendship  between  the  countries.     But  I  know  these  continued  public  ap- 


LETTERS   OF   T.   C.   GRATTAX.  501 

pearances  will  expose  me  to  envy,  hatred,  and  malice.  I  hope  to  do  some- 
thing historical  by  and  by,  and  peiliaps  an  occasional  article  in  the  North 
American  Review.  But  anything  like  light  writing  I  never  can  again 
turn  to." 

From  a  very  long  letter  "written  on  the  13th  of  May, 
1841,  I  \d\\  give  a  few  extracts  : 

"  Mt  dear  and  talced  Friend, — Your  letter  from  Peniyth  [«c],  with- 
out date,  but  bearing  the  ominous  postmark,  'April  1st,'  has  completely 
made  a  fool  of  me,  in  that  sense  which  implies  that  nothing  else  can  excuse 
a  gray  head  and  a  scared  heart  for  thinking  and  feeling  that  there  are  such 
things  in  the  world  as  affection  and  sincerity.  Being  fond  of  flying  in  the 
face  of  reason,  and  despising  experience,  whenever  they  lay  down  general 
rules,  I  am  resolved  to  believe  in  exceptions,  to  delight  in  instances,  and  to 
be  quite  satisfied  that  I  have  '  troops  of  friends ' — you  being  one  of  the 
troopers — no  matter  how  few  others  there  may  be,  or  where  they  are  to  be 
found. 

"  You  really  must  imagine  how  glad  we  were  to  see  your  handwriting 
again,  and  I  may  say,  also,  how  surprised ;  for  it  passeth  our  understand- 
ing to  discover  how  you  make  time  for  any  correspondence  at  all.  We 
have  followed  all  your  literary  doings  step  by  step  since  we  left  Europe, 
and  we  never  cease  wondering  at  your  fertility  and  rejoicing  at  your  sue- 
cess.  But  I  am  grieved  to  think  that  all  tiiis  is  at  the  cost  of  your  com- 
fort. Or  is  it  that  you  wrote  in  a  querulous  mood  when  you  said  those 
sharp  things  about  your  gray-goose  quill?  Surely  composition  must  be 
pleasant  to  you.  No  one  who  writes  so  fast  and  so  well  can  find  it  actu- 
ally irksome.  I  am  aware  that  people  sometimes  think  they  find  it  so. 
But  we  may  deceive  ourselves  on  the  dark  as  well  as  on  the  bright  side  of 
our  road,  an<]  more  easily  because  it  is  the  dark.  Tliat  is  to  say,  we  may 
not  only  cheat  ourselves  with  false  hopes  of  good,  but  with  false  notions 
of  evil,  which  provc.t,  if  it  proves  anything  just  now,  that  you  are  consid- 
eraljly  mistaken  when  you  fancy  writing  to  be  a  bore,  and  that  I  know 
infinitely  belter  tlian  you  do  what  you  like  or  dislike." 

It  i.s  rather  singular  to  find  a  literary  worktnmi  talking 
in  this  style,  (irattan  was  not  a  fertile  writer,  and,  I 
must  suppose,  was  never  a  very  industrious  one.  But  he 
surely  must  have  known  that  talk  altout  the  ])h'nsun's  of 
"  compf^sitidn  "  was  wlmlly  l»eside  the  mark.  That  may 
be,  often  is,  jdea.sant  t-nough,  and  if  the  thoughts  cduld 
be  telephoned  frum  the  brain  to  tlif  typ's  it  would  all  be 
miLfhty  agreeable,  and  the  world  would  bi-  very  consider- 
al)ly  more  overwhelmed  with  autliorship  than  it  is.  It  is 
tlie  "  gray-g(»o-.e  (jiiill  "  work,  tin-  necessity  lor  incarnating 
the  creatures  of  the  brain  in  black  and  white,  that  is  the 


502  WHAT   1   REMEMBER. 

world's  protection  from  this  avalanche.  And  I,  for  one, 
do  not  understand  liow  anybody  who,  eschewing  the  sun- 
shine and  the  iields  and  the  song  of  birds,  or  the  enjoy- 
ment of  other  people's  brain-work,  has  glued  himself  to 
his  desk  for  long  hours,  can  say  or  imagine  that  his  task 
is,  or  has  been,  aught  else  than  hard  and  distasteful  work, 
demanding  unrelaxing  self-denial  and  industry.  And, 
however  fine  the  frenzy  in  which  the  poet's  eye  may  roll 
while  he  builds  the  lofty  line,  the  work  of  putting  some 
thousands  of  them  on  the  paper,  when  built,  must  be  as  irk- 
some to  him  as  the  penny-a-liner's  task  is  to  him — more  so, 
in  that  the  mind  of  the  latter  does  not  need  to  be  forcibly 
and  painfully  restrained  from  rushing  on  to  the  new  past- 
ures which  invite  it,  and  curbed  to  the  packhorse  pace  of 
the  quill-driving  process. 

"  i'ou  must  not,"  he  continues,  "allow  yourself  to  be,  or  even  fancy 
that  you  are,  tiieii,  or  tormented,  or  worn  out.  Work  the  mine  to  the 
hist.  Pump  up  eveiy  chop  out  of  the  well.  Put  money  i'  thy  purse;  and 
add  story  after  story  to  that  structure  of  fame,  which  will  enable  you  to 
do  as  much  to  that  house  by  the  lake-side  wliere  I  will  hope  to  see  you 
yet." 

He  then  goes  on  to  speak  at  considerable  length  of  the 
society  of  Boston,  praising  it  much,  yet  saying  that  it  is 
made  more  charming  to  a  visitor  than  to  a  permanent  res- 
ident, "In  this  it  differs,"  he  says,  "from  almost  all  the 
countries  I  have  lived  in  in  Europe  except  Holland." 

Speaking  of  a  visit  to  Washington  during  the  inaugura- 
tion of  General  Harrison,  which  seems  to  have  delighted 
him  much,  he  says  he  travelled  back  with  a  family, 

"At  least  with  the  master  and  mistress  of  it,  of  whom  I  must  tell  you 
pomcthing.  Mr.  Paige  is  a  merchant,  and  brotlier-in-law  of  Mr.  Webster; 
Mrs.  Paige  a  niece  of  Judge  Story.  From  this  double  connection  with  two 
of  the  first  men  in  the  country  their  family  associations  are  particularly 
a"-reeable.  Mrs.  Paige  is  one  of  three  sisters,  all  very  handsome,  spirited, 
and  full  of  talent.  One  is  married  to  Mr.  Webster's  eldest  son.  Another, 
Mrs.  Joy,  has  for  li9r  husband  an  idle  gentleman,  a  rare  thing  in  this  place. 
Mrs.  Paige  was  in  Europe  two  years  ago  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webster,  sen- 
ior (the  latter,  by-the-bye,  is  a  nifM  charming  person),  and  had  the  advan- 
tage of  seeing  society  in  England  and  France  in  its  best  aspect.,  and  is  one 
who  can  compare  as  well  as  see.  .  .  .  Among  the  men  [of  the  Boston  soci- 
ety] are  Dr.  Channing,  a  prophet  in  our  country,  a  pamphleteer  in  his  own  ; 


LETTERS  OF   T.  C.  GRATTAX.  503 

Bancroft,  the  historian  of  America,  a  man  of  superior  talents  and  great 
agreeabilitv,  but  a  black  sheep  in  society,  on  account  of  his  Van  Buren 
politics,  against  whom  the  white  sheep  of  the  Whig  part}'  will  not  rub 
themselves ;  Prescott,  the  aiitlior  of  '  Fenlinand  and  Isabella,'  a  hand- 
some, half-blind  shunner  of  the  vanities  of  the  world,  with  some  others 
who  read  and  write  a  good  deal,  and  no  one  the  wiser  for  it.  Edward 
Everett  is  in  Italv,  where  you  will  surely  meet  him  [we  saw  a  good  deal  of 
him].  He  is  rather  formal  than  cold,  if  all  I  hear  whispered  of  him  be 
true;  of  elegant  taste  in  literature,  though  not  of  easy  manners,  and,  alto- 
gether, an  admirable  specimen  of  an  American  orator  and  scholar.  At 
Cambridge,  three  miles  off,  we  have  Judge  Story,  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
eloquent,  deeply  learned,  garrulous,  lively,  amiable,  excellent  in  all  and 
every  way  that  a  mortal  can  be.  He  is,  decidedly,  the  gem  of  this  western 
world.  Mr.  Webster  is  now  settled  at  Washington,  though  here  at  this 
moment  on  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Paige.  Among  our  neighboring  notabilities  is 
John  Quincy  Adams,  an  ex-President  of  liie  United  States,  ex-minister  at 
half  the  courts  in  Europe,  and  now,  at  seventy-five,  a  simple  member  of 
Congress,  hard  as  a  piece  of  granite  and  cold  as  a  lump  of  ice." 

Speaking  of  liis  having  very  frequently  appeared  at 
public  meetings  during  the  first  year  of  his  consulship, 
and  of  his  having  since  that  refrained  from  such  appear- 
ances, he  continues  : 

"  I  was  doubtful  as  to  the  way  my  being  so  much  eti  evidence  might  be 
relished  at  home.  Of  late  public  matters  have  been  on  so  ticklish  a  foot- 
ing that  all  the  less  a  I}riti.-;h  functionary  was  seen  the  better. 

"  In  literature  I  have  done  notliing,  barring  a  couple  of  articles  on  Ire- 
land and  the  Irish  in  America,  a  subject  I  have  nuuli  at  heart.  But,  much 
as  I  feel  for  them  and  with  tliem,  I  refused  dining  with  my  countrymen  on 
St.  Patrick's  Day  because  they  had  the  gnuchcrie  (of  which  I  had  previous 
notice)  to  turn  the  festive  meeting  into  a  pohtical  one  by  giving  '  O'ConncU 
and  success  to  repeal '  as  one  of  their  '  rcguhir'  toasts,  and  by  leaving  out 
the  Queen's  health,  whicli  tiiey  gave  when  I  dined  with  them  last  year." 

Then,  after  drtailed  notices  of  tlie  movements  of  his 
sons,  lie  goes  on  : 

"  Wc  have  many  plans  in  perspective — Niagara,  Canada,  Halifax,  the 
mountain!*,  the  sjirings,  the  sea — tiie  re.-iult  of  which  you  shall  know  as 
8oon  as  we  receive  a  true  and  faithful  account  of  your  adventures  in  just 
08  many  pages  as  you  ran  afToril ;  but  Tom  nnist,  in  the  meantime,  send 
mc  n  long  K-tliT.  .  .  .  Tell  Tom  I  have  half  re.'*olved  to  give  up  )>unning  and 
take  to  repartee.  A  young  fellow  said  to  mc  the  other  day, '  Ah  !  Mr.  Con- 
sul (as  I  am  always  railed),  I  wi.sli  I  could  discover  a  new  pleasure.'  'Try 
virtue!'  was  my  rc|)ly.  A  pompous  ex-governor  said,  swaggeringly,  to  tue, 
at  the  last  dinner-party  at  which  I  assisted,  'Well,  Mr.  Consul,  I  supi>osu 


504  WUAT    I   REMEMBER. 

you  Europeans  think  us  semi-civilized  here  in  America?'  'Almost!'  said 
I.  Now  iisk  Tom  if  that  was  not  pretty  considerable  smart.  But  assure 
him,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  nothing  at  all  to  what  I  could  do  in  the  way  of 
impertinence !     Need  I  say  how  truly  and  affectionately  we  all  love  you  ? 

"  T.  C.  Grattan." 

I  wrote  back  that  I  would  enter  the  lists  with  him  in  the 
matter  of  impertinence,  and,  as  a  sample,  told  him  that  I 
tl)onght  he  had  better  return  to  the  punning. 

I  could,  I  doubt  not,  find  among  my  mother's  papers 
some  further  letters  that  might  be  worth  printing  or  quot- 
ing. But  my  waning  space  warns  me  that  I  must  not  in- 
dulge myself  with  doing  so. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

THEODOSIA     TROLLOP  E. 

I  SAID  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  chapter  that,  during 
the  period,  some  of  the  recollections  of  which  I  had  been 
chronicling,  the  two  greatest  sorrows  I  had  ever  known 
had  befallen  me.  A  third  came  subsequently.  But  that 
belonged  to  a  period  of  my  life  which  does  not  fall  within 
the  limits  I  have  assigned  to  these  reminiscences.  Of  the 
first,  the  death  of  my  mother,  I  have  spoken.  The  other, 
the  death  of  my  wife,  followed  it  at  no  great  distance,  and 
was,  of  course,  a  far  more  terrible  one.  She  had  been  ail- 
ing— so  long,  indeed,  that  I  had  become  habituated  to  it, 
and  thought  that  she  would  continue  to  live  as  she  had 
been  living.  We  had  been  travelling  in  Switzerland  in 
the  autumn  of  1RG4  ;  and  I  remember  very  vividly  her 
saying,  on  board  the  steamer  by  which  we  were  leaving 
Colico,  at  the  head  of  the  Lake  of  Como,  on  our  return  to 
Italy,  as  she  turned  on  the  deck  to  take  a  last  look  at  the 
mountains, "  Good-bye,  you  big  beauties!"  I  little  thought 
it  was  her  last  adieu  to  them  ;  but  I  thought  afterwards 
that  she  probably  may  have  had  some  misgivings  that  it 
was  so. 

lint  it  was  not  till  the  following  spring  that  I  began  to 
reali/.e  that  I  must  lose  her.  She  died  on  the  l;Uh  of  April, 
1805. 

I  have  spoken  (if  her  as  slu'  was  wluii  she  lu'camc  my 
wife,  but  without  much  hope  of  representing  her  to  those 
who  never  liail  tlic  happiness  of  knowing  her  as  she  really 
was,  not  only  in  person,  which  matters  litth",  but  in  mind 
and  infi'ilcctual  powers.  And  to  tell  what  she  was  in 
heart,  in  disj)osition  — in  a  word,  in  soul  —  wouiil  be  u  far 
more  difticidt  task. 

In  her  the  a-sthetic  faculties  were  ]irobably  tiie  njost 
marketUy  exceptional  [lortion  of  Imt  intellectual  constitu- 


506  WUAT   I   REMEMBER. 

tion.  The  often-cited  dictum,  les  races  se  feminisent,  was 
not  exemplified  in  ber  case.  From  her  mother,  an  accom- 
plished musician,  slie  inherited  her  very  pronoimced  mu- 
sical* faculty  and  tendencies,  and,  I  think,  little  else. 
From  her  father,  a  man  of  very  varied  capacities  and  cult- 
ure, she  drew  much  more.  How  far,  if  in  any  degree,  this 
fact  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  connected  in  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect,  with  the  other  fact,  that  her  moth- 
er was  more  than  fifty  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  her  birth, 
I  leave  to  the  speculations  of  physiological  inquirers.  In 
bodily  constitution  her  iidieritance  from  her  father's  moth- 
er was  most  marked.  To  that  source  must  be  traced,  I 
conceive,  the  delicacy  of  constitution,  speaking  medically, 
which  deprived  me  of  her  at  a  comparatively  early  age  ; 
for  both  father  and  mother  were  of  thoroughly  healthy 
and  strong  constitutions.  But  if  it  may  be  suspected  that 
the  Brahmin  Sultana,  her  grandmother,  bequeathed  her  her 
frail  diathesis,  there  was  no  doubt  or  difficulty  in  tracing 
to  that  source  the  exterior  delicacy  of  formation  which 
characterized  her.  I  remember  her  telling  me  that  the 
last  words  a  dying  sister  of  her  mother's  ever  spoke,  when 
Theodosia,  standing  by  the  bedside,  placed  her  hand  on 
the  dying  woman's  forehead,  were,  "  Ah,  that  is  Theo's 
little  Indian  hand."  And,  truly,  the  slender  delicacy  of 
hand  and  foot  which  characterized  her  were  unmistakably 
due  to  her  Indian  descent.  In  person  she  in  no  wise  re- 
sembled either  father  or  mother,  unless  it  were,  possibly, 
her  father,  in  the  conformation  and  shape  of  the  teeth. 

I  have  already,  in  a  previous  chapter  of  these  reminis- 
cences, given  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Browning  in  which  she 
speaks  of  Theodosia's  "  multiform  faculty."  And  the 
phrase,  which  so  occurring,  miglit  in  the  case  of  almost 
any  other  writer  be  taken  as  a  mere  epistolary  civility,  is 
in  the  case  of  one  whose  absolute  accuracy  of  veracity 
never  swerved  a  hair's -breadth,  equivalent  to  a  formal 
certificate  of  the  fact  to  the  best  of  her  knowledge.  And 
she  knew  my  wife  well  both  before  and  after  the  mar- 
riage of  either  of  them.     Her  faculty  was  truly  multifortn. 

*  But  this  she  might,  also,  have  got  from  licr  f;ithi.T,  who  was  passion- 
ately fond  of  music,  and  was  a  very  respectable  performer  on  the  violin. 


THEODOSIA   TROLLOPE.  507 

She  was  not  a  great  musician  ;  but  her  singing  had  for 
great  musicians  a  cliarm  which  the  performances  of  many 
of  their  equals  in  the  art  failed  to  afford  them.  She  had 
never  much  voice,  but  I  have  rarely  seen  the  hearer  to 
whose  eyes  she  could  not  bring  the  tears.  She  had  a  spell 
for  awakening  emotional  sympathy  which  I  have  never 
seen  surpassed,  rarely,  indeed,  equalled. 

For  language  she  had  an  especial  talent,  was  dainty  in 
the  use  of  her  own,  and  astonishingly  apt  in  acquiring — 
not  merely  the  use  for  speaking  as  well  as  reading  pur- 
poses, but  —  the  delicacies  of  other  tongues.  Of  Italian, 
with  which  she  was  naturally  most  conversant,  she  was 
recognized  by  acknowledged  experts  to  be  a  thoroughly 
competent  critic. 

She  published,  now  many  years  ago,  in  the  Athencewn^ 
some  translations  from  the  satirist  Giusti,  which  any  in- 
telligent reader  would,  I  think,  recognize  to  be  cleverly 
done.  But  none  save  the  verv  few  in  this  country  who 
know  and  can  understand  the  Tuscan  poet's  works  in  the 
original  can  at  all  conceive  the  difficultv  of  translating: 
him  into  tolerable  English  verse.  And  I  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  asserting  that  any  competent  judge,  who  is  such 
by  virtue  of  understanding  the  original,  would  pronounce 
her  translations  of  Giusti  to  be  a  masterpiece,  which  very 
few,  indeed,  of  contemporary  men  or  women  could  have 
])roduced.  I  have  more  than  once  surprised  lur  in  tears 
occasioned  by  her  obstinate  struggles  witli  some  passage  of 
the  intensely  idiomatic  satirist,  which  she  found  it  almost 
— but  eventually  not  quite  —  impossible  to  render  to  her 
satisfaction. 

She  published  a  translation  of  Niccolini's  "Arnaldo  da 
Brescia,"  which  won  the  cordial  admiration  and  friendship 
of  that  great  ]»oet.  And  neither  Niccolini's  admiration 
nor  his  friendshij)  were  easily  won.  He  was,  when  wc 
knew  him  at  Florence  in  his  (»ld  age,  a  somewhat  crabbed 
oM  man,  not  at  all  disposed  to  make  new  accpiaintanccs, 
and,  I  tliink,  somewhat  soured  and  disappointed,  not  cer- 
tainly with  the  meed  of  ailniiration  he  had  won  from  his 
coimtryinen  as  a  poet,  but  with  the  amount  of  effect  which 
his  writings  had  availed  to  produce  in  the  political  senti- 


508  WHAT   I  REMEMBER. 

merits  and  then  apparent  destinies  of  the  Italians.  But 
he  was  conquered  by  the  yoking  Englishwoman's  trans- 
lation of  his  favorite,  and,  I  think,  his  linest  work.  It  is  a 
thoroughly  trustworthy  and  excellent  translation  ;  but  the 
execution  of  it  was  child's  play  in  comparison  with  the 
translations  from  Giusti. 

She  translated  a  number  of  the  curiously  characteristic 
stornelli  of  Tuscany,  and  especially  of  the  Pistoja  moun- 
tains. And  here  again  it  is  impossible  to  make  any  one 
who  has  never  been  familiar  with  these  stornelli  under- 
stand the  especial  difficulty  of  translating  them.  Of 
course  the  task  was  a  slighter  and  less  significant  one 
than  that  of  translating  Giusti,  nor  was  the  same  degree 
of  critical  accuracy  and  nicety  in  rendering  shades  of 
meaning  called  for.  But  there  were  not — are  not — many 
persons  who  could  cope  with  the  especial  difficulties  of  the 
attempt  as  successfully  as  she  did.  She  produced  also  a 
number  of  pen-and-ink  drawings  illustrating  these  stor- 
nelli, which  I  still  possess,  and  in  which  the  spirited, 
graphic,  and  accurately  truthful  characterization  of  the 
figures  could  only  have  been  achieved  by  an  artist  very 
intimately  acquainted  intxis  et  in  cute  with  the  subjects  of 
her  pencil. 

She  published  a  volume  on  the  Tuscan  revolution,  which 
was  very  favorably  received.  The  Examiner,  among  oth- 
er critics  —  all  of  them,  to  the  best  of  my  remembrance, 
more  or  less  favorable — said  of  these  "  Letters  "  (for  that 
was  the  form  in  which  the  work  was  published,  all  of 
them,  I  think,  having  been  previously  j)rinted  in  the  Athe- 
ncmtn),  "  Better  political  information  than  this  book  gives 
may  be  had  in  plenty  ;  but  it  has  a  special  value  which 
we  might  almost  represent  by  comparing  it  to  the  report 
of  a  very  watchful  nurse,  who,  without  the  physician's 
scientific  knowledge,  uses  her  own  womanly  instinct  in 
observing  every  change  of  countenance  and  every  move- 
ment indicating  the  return  of  health  and  strength  to  the 
patient.  .  .  .  She  has  written  a  very  vivid  and  truthful 
account."  The  critic  has  very  accurately,  and,  it  may  be 
said,  graphically,  assigned  its  true  value  and  character  to 
the  book. 


THEODOSIA   TKOLLOrE.  509 

I  have  found  it  necessary  in  a  former  chapter,  where  I 
have  given  a  number  of  interesting  and  characteristic  let- 
ters from  Landor  to  my  wife's  father,  to  insert  a  depreca- 
tory caveat  against  tlie  exuberant  enthusiasm  of  admira- 
tion  which  led  him  to  talk  of  the  probability  of  her  eclips- 
ing the  names  and  fame  of  other  poets,  including  in  this 
estimate  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning.  The  preposterous- 
ness  of  this  no  human  being  would  have  felt  more  strong- 
ly than  Thcodosia  Garrow,  except  Theodosia  Trollope, 
when  such  an  estimate  had  become  yet  more  preposterous. 
But  Landor,  whose  unstinted  admiration  of  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's poetry  is  vigorously  enough  expressed  in  his  own 
strong  language,  as  ma}'  be  seen  in  Mr.  Forster's  pages, 
Avould  not  have  dreamed  of  instituting  any  such  compar- 
ison at  a  later  day.  But  that  his  critical  acumen  and 
judgment  were  not  altogether  destroyed  by  the  enthu- 
siasm of  his  friendship,  is,  I  think,  shown  by  the  following 
little  poem  by  Theodosia  Trollope,  written  a  few  years  af- 
ter the  birth  of  her  child.  I  don't  think  I  need  apologize 
for  printing  it. 

The  original  MS.  of  it  before  me  gives  no  title  ;  nor  do 
I  remember  that  the  authoress  ever  assigned  one  to  the 
verses. 


"  In  the  noonday's  golden  pleasance, 
Little  Bice,  baby  fair, 
With  a  fresh  and  flowery  presence, 
Dances  round  her  nurse's  chair, 
In  the  old  gray  loggia  dances,  haloed  by  her  shining  hair. 


"Pretty  pearl  in  sober  setting. 

Where  llie  arches  garner  shade! 
Cones  of  maize  like  golden  netting, 
Fringe  the  sturdy  colonnade, 
And  the  lizanN  iinily  pausing  glance  across  the  balustrade. 

III. 

"  Brown  cicala  dryly  proses, 

Creaking  the  hot  air  to  sleep, 
Bounteous  orange  flowers  and  roses. 
Yield   the   wealth   of  love   they    keep, 
Tu  the  sun's  imperious  ardor  in  a  dream  of  fragrance  deep. 


510  WHAT   I  REMEMBER 

IV. 

"And  a  cypress,  mystic  hearted, 
Cleaves  the  quiet  dome  of  light 
With  its  black  green  masses  parted 
But  by  gaps  of  blacker  night. 
Which  the  giddy  moth  and  beetle  circle  round  in  dubious  flight. 


"Here  the  well-chain's  pleasant  clanging, 
Sings  of  coolness  deep  below ; 
There  the  vine  leaves  breathless  hanging, 
Shine  transfigured  in  the  glow, 
And  the  pillars  stare  in  silence  at  the  shadows  which  they  throw. 

TI. 

"  Portly  nurse,  black-browed,  red-vested. 
Knits  and  dozes,  drowsed  with  heat ; 
Bice,  like  a  wren  gold-crested, 
Chirps  and  teases  round  her  seat. 
Hides  the  needles,  plucks  the  stocking,  rolls  the  cotton  o'er  her  feet. 

vu. 

"Nurse  must  fetch  a  draught  of  water, 
In  the  glass  with  painted  wings,* 
Nurse  must  show  her  little  daughter 
All  her  tale  of  silver  rings. 
Dear  sweet  nurse  must  sing  a  couplet— solemn  nurse,  who  never  sings. 

Till. 

"Blest  Madonna!   what  a  clamor! 
Now  the  little  torment  tries, 
Perched  on  tiptoe,  all  the  glamour 
Of  her  coaxing  hands  and  eyes ! 
May  she  hold  the  glass  she  drinks  from— just  one  moment,  Bice  cries. 

IX. 

"Nurse  lifts  high  the  Venice  beaker. 

Bossed  with  masks,  and  flecked  with  gold. 
Scarce  in  time  to  'scape  the  quicker 
Little  fingers  overbold. 
Craving,  tendril-like,  to  grasp  it,  with  the  will  of  four  years  old. 


♦Those  unacquainted  with  the  forms  of  the  old  decorated  Venetian  glass 
will  hardly  understand  the  phrase  in  the  text.  Those  who  know  them  will 
feel  the  accuracy  of  the  picture. 


THEODOSIA  TROLLOPE.  511 

X. 

"  Pretty  wood-bird,  pecking,  flitting, 
Round  the  clicrries  on  the  tree, 
"Ware  the  scarecrow,  grimly  sitting, 
Crouched  for  silly  things,  like  thee ! 
Nurse  hath  plenty  such  in  ambush.     '  Touch  not,  for  it  burns,'*  quoth  she. 

XI. 

"And  thine  eyes'  blue  mirror  widens 
With  an  awestroke  of  belief; 
Meekly  following  that  blind  guidance, 
On  thy  finger's  rosy  sheaf, 
Blow'st  thou  softly,  fancy  wounded,  soothing  down  a  painless  grief. 

XII. 

"Nurse  and  nursling,  learner,  teacher, 
Tiius  foreshadow  things  to  come, 
Wiien  the  girl  shall  grow  the  creature 
Of  false  terrors  vain  and  dumb, 
And  intrust  their  baleful  fetish  with  her  being's  scope  and  sum. 

XIII. 

"Then  her  heart  shall  shrink  and  wither, 
Custom-straitened  like  her  waist, 
All  her  thought  to  cower  together, 
Huddling,  sheeplike,  with  the  rest. 
With  the  flock  of  soulless  bodies    on  a  pattern  schooled  and  laced. 

XIV. 

"Till  the  stream  of  years  encrust  her 
With  a  numbing  mail  of  stone. 
Till  her  laugh  lose  half  its  lustre, 
And  her  truth  forswear  its  tone, 
And  she  sees  God's  might  and  mercy  darkly  through  a  glass  alone! 

XV. 

"  While  our  childhood   fair  and  sacred, 
Saplcs.s  doctrines  doth  rehearse, 
And   the  milk  of  falsehoods  acrid, 
BuriiH  our  babe-lips  like  a  curse, 
Cling  wc  must  to  goiJIcss  prophets,  as  the  suckling  to  the  nurse. 

XVI. 

"As  the  Bced  time,  so  the  reaping, 
Shamo  on  us  who  overreach, 

•  "  Noil  toccare  chc  bruria"  Tuscan  proverb. 


512  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

While  our  eyes  yet  smart  with  weeping, 
Hearts  so  all  our  own  to  teach, 
Better  they  and  we  lay  sleeping  where  the  darkness  hath  uo  speech !" 

It  is  impossible  foi-  any  but  those  who  know — not  Flor- 
ence, but  —  rural  Tuscany  Avell  to  appreciate  the  really 
w'onderful  accuracy  and  picturesque  perfection  of  the 
above  scene  from  a  Tuscan  afternoon.  But  I  think  many 
others  will  feel  the  lines  to  be  good.  In  the  concluding 
stanzas,  in  which  the  writer  draws  her  moral,  there  are 
weak  lines.  But  in  the  first  eleA^'n,  which  paint  her  pict- 
ure, there  is  not  one.  Every  touch  tells,  and  tells  with 
admirable  truth  and  vividness  of  presentation.  In  one 
copy  of  the  lines  which  I  have,  the  name  is  changed  from 
Bice  to  "Flavia,"  and  this,  I  take  it,  because  of  the  entire 
non-applicability  of  the  latter  stanzas  to  the  child,  whose 
rearing  was  in  her  own  hands.  But  the  picture  of  child 
and  nurse — how  lifelike  none  can  tell  but  I — was  the  pict- 
ure of  her  "  baby  Beatrice,"  aud  the  description  sim])ly 
the  reproduction  of  things  seen. 

I  think  I  may  venture  to  print  also  the  following  lines. 
They  are,  in  my  o])inion,  far  from  being  equal  in  merit  to 
the  little  poem  printed  above,  but  they  are  pretty,  and  I 
think  sufiiciently  good  to  do  no  discredit  to  her  memory. 
Like  the  preceding,  they  have  no  title. 


"I  built  ine  a  temple,  and  said  it  should  be 
A  shrine,  and  a  home  where  the  past  meets  me, 
And  tlie  most  evanescent  and  fleeting  of  things. 
Should  be  lured  to  my  temple,  and  shorn  of  their  wings, 
To  adorn  my  palace  of  memories. 

11. 

"  The  pearl  of  the  morning,  the  glow  of  the  noon. 
The  play  of  the  clouds  as  they  float  past  the  moon, 
The  most  magical  tint  on  the  snowiest  peak, 
They  are  gone  while  I  gaze,  fade  before  you  can  speak, 
Yet  they  stay  in  my  palace  of  memories. 

III. 

"  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  forest  trees, 
Aud  heard  the  sweet  sigh  of  the  wandering  breeze^ 


THEODOSIA   TROLLOPE.  513 

And  this  with  the  tiukle  of  heifer  bells, 
As  they  trill  on  the  ear  from  the  dewy  delis, 
Are  the  sounds  in  my  palace  of  memories. 

IV. 

"I  looked  in  the  face  of  a  little  child. 
With  its  fugitive  dimples  and  eyes  so  wilJ, 
It  springs  ofif  with  a  bound  like  a  wild  gazelle, 
It  is  off  and  away,  but  I've  caught  my  * 

And  here's  mirth  for  my  palace  of  memories. 


"  In  the  morning  we  meet  on  a  mountain  height, 
And  we  walk  and  converse  till  the  fall  of  night, 
We  hold  hands  for  a  moment,  then  pass  on  our  way, 
But  that  which  I've  got  from  the  friend  of  a  day, 
I'll  keep  in  my  palace  of  memories." 

The  verses  which  Landor  praised  with  enthusiasm  so 
excessive  were  most,  or  I  think  all  of  them,  published  iu 
the  annual  edited  by  his  friend  Lady  Blessington,  and 
were  all  written  before  our  marriage.  I  have  many  long 
letters  addressed  to  her  by  that  lady,  and  several  by  her 
niece  Miss  Power,  respecting  them.  They  always  in  every 
instance  ask  for  "  more." 

]\Iany  of  her  verses  she  set  to  music,  especially  one  little 
poemlet,  which  I  remember  to  this  day  the  tune  of,  which 
she  called  the  "Song  of  the  Blackbird,"  and  which  was,  if 
I  remember  rightly,  made  to  consist  wholly  of  the  notes 
uttered  by  the  bird. 

Another  instance  of  her  "  multiform  faculty  "  was  her 
learning  landscape  sketching.  I  have  spoken  of  her  figure- 
drawing.  And  this,  I  take  it,  was  the  real  bent  of  her 
talent  in  that  line.  But  uTiable  to  comi)ass  the  likeness  of 
a  havstack  myself,  I  was  disirous  of  possessing  some  rec- 
ord of  the  many  journeys  which  I  designe<l  to  take,  and 
eventually  di<l  take  with  her.  And  wholly  to  ])lease  me 
she  forthwith  made  the  attempt,  and  though  her  land- 
scape was  never  e<)ual  to  her  figure  drawing,  I  ])0ssess  some 
couple  of  hundred  of  water-oolor  sketches  done  by  her 
from  nature  on  the  spot. 

•  Word  here  illegible. 


5U  WHAT   I   REMEMBER. 

I  used  to  say  that  if  I  wanted  a  Sanscrit  dictionary,  I 
had  only  to  ])ut  her  head  straight  at  it,  and  let  her  feel  the 
spur,  and  it  would  have  been  done. 

We  lived  together  seventeen  happy  years.  During  the 
first  five  I  think  I  may  say  that  she  lived  wholly  and 
solely  in,  by,  and  for  me.  That  she  should  live  for  some- 
body other  than  herself  was  an  absolute  indefeasible  neces- 
sity of  her  nature.  During  the  last  twelve  years  I  shared 
her  heart  with  her  daughter.  Her  intense  worship  for  her 
"Baby  Beatrice"  was  equalled  only  by — that  of  all  the 
silliest  and  all  the  wisest  women,  who  have  true  womanly 
hearts  in  their  bosoms,  for  their  children.  The  worship 
was,  of  course,  all  the  more  absorbing  that  the  object  of 
it  was  unique.  I  take  it  that,  after  the  birth  of  her  child, 
I  came  second  in  her  heart.  But  I  was  not  jealous  of  little 
Bice. 

I  do  not  think  that  she  would  have  quite  subscribed  to 
the  opinion  of  Garibaldi  on  the  subject  of  the  priesthood, 
which  I  mentioned  in  a  former  chapter — that  they  ought 
all  to  be  forthwith  put  to  death.  But  all  her  feelings  and 
opinions  were  bitterly  antagonistic  to  them.  She  was  so 
deeply  convinced  of  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  inflicted 
by  them  and  their  Church  on  the  character  of  the  Italians, 
for  whom  she  ever  felt  a  great  afiection,  that  she  was 
bitter  on  the  subject.  And  it  is  the  only  subject  on  which 
I  ever  knew  her  to  feel  in  any  degree  bitterly.  Many  of 
her  verses  Avritten  during  her  latter  years  are  fiercely  de- 
nunciatory or  humorously  satirical  of  the  Italian  priest- 
hood, and  especially  of  the  pontifical  government.  I 
wish  that  my  space  permitted  me  to  give  further  speci- 
mens of  them  here.  But  I  must  content  mvself  with  giv- 
ing  one  line,  which  haunts  my  memory,  and  appears  to  me 
excessively  hai)py  in  the  accurate  truthfulness  of  its  sim- 
ile. She  is  writing  of  the  journey  which  Pius  the  Ninth 
made,  and  describing  his  equipment,  says  that  he  started 
"with  strings  of  cheap  blessings,  like  glass  beads  for 
savages." 

"With  the  exception  of  this  strong  sentiment  my  wife 
was  one  of  the  most  tolerant  people  I  ever  knew.  What 
she  most  avoided  in  those  with  whom  she  associated  was, 


THEODOSIA  TROLLOPE.  515 

not  so  much  ignorance,  or  even  vulgarity  of  manner,  as 
pure  native  stupidity.  But  even  of  that,  when  the  need 
arose,  she  was  tolerant,  I  never  knew  her  in  the  selection 
of  an  acquaintance,  or  even  of  a  friend,  to  be  influenced 
to  the  extent  of  even  a  hair's-breadth  by  station,  rank, 
wealth,  fashion,  or  any  consideration  whatever,  save  per- 
sonal liking  and  sympathy,  which  was,  in  her  case,  per- 
fectly compatible  with  the  widest  divergence  of  views  and 
opinions  on  nearly  any  of  the  great  subjects  which  most 
divide  mankind,  and  even  with  divergence  of  rules  of  con- 
duct. Her  own  opinions  were  the  honest  results  of  orig- 
inal thinking,  and  her  conduct  the  outcome  of  the  dictates 
of  her  own  heart — of  her  heart  rather  than  of  her  reason- 
ing powers,  or  of  any  code  of  law — a  condition  of  mind 
which  mi^'ht  be  dangerous  to  individuals  with  less  native 
j)urity  of  heart  than  hers. 

As  a  wife,  as  a  daughter,  as  a  daughter-in-law,  as  a 
mother,  she  was  absolutely  irreproachable.  In  the  first 
relationship  she  was  all  in  all  to  me  for  seventeen  years. 
She  brought  sweetness  and  light  into  my  life  and  into  my 
dwelling.  She  was  the  angel  in  the  house,  if  ever  human 
being  was. 

ller  father  became  an  inmate  of  our  house  after  the 
death  of  his  wife  at  a  great  age  at  Torquay,  whither  they 
had  returned  after  the  death  of  my  wife's  half-sister,  Har- 
riet Fisher.  He  was  a  jealously  affectionate,  but  very  ex- 
acting father  ;  and  few  daughters,  I  think,  could  have 
been  more  admirable  in  her  alfcctidU  for  him,  her  atten- 
tion to  him,  her  care  of  him.  And  I  may  very  safely  say 
tliat  very  few  mothers  of  sons  have  the  fortune  of  finding 
such  a  daughter-in-law.  !My  mother  had  Vieen  very  fond 
of  her  l)efore  our  marriage,  and  bi-came  afterwards  as  <le- 
votedly  attached  to  lier  as  she  was  t(»  me,  of  whom  she 
know  her  to  be  an  indivisible  part,  while  she  was  to  my 
mother  simply  perfect.  Her  owJi  mother  she  had  always 
been  in  the  habit  of  calling  by  that  name.  She  always 
spoke  to  and  of  n>y  mother  as  *'  mammy."  What  she  was 
to  her  own  daughter  I  liave  already  saiil.  There  was 
somewhat  of  the  lemli'iicy  towards  "spoiling"  which  is 
mostly   inseparable   fnnn   the   adoration    which   a   young 


516  ^Y^AT  I   REMEMBER. 

mother,  of  the  right  sort,  feels  for  her  first-born  child,  but 
she  never  made  any  attempt  to  avert  or  counteract  my 
endeavors  to  jirevent  such  spoiling.  When  little  Bice  had 
to  be  punished  by  solitary  confinement  for  half  an  hour, 
she  only  watched  anxiously  for  the  expiration  of  the  sen- 
tence.* 

But  that  her  worth,  her  talent,  her  social  qualities,  were 
recognized  by  a  Avider  world  than  that  of  her  own  family, 
or  her  own  circle  of  friends,  is  testified  by  the  recording 
stone  which  the  municipality  placed  on  my  house  at  the 
corner  of  the  Piazza  dell'  Independenza,  where  it  may  still 
be  seen.  Indeed,  the  honor  was  not  undeserved.  For  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  her  residence  in  Italy,  which  nearly  syn- 
chronized with  the  struggle  of  Italy  for  her  independence 
and  unit}^,  she  had  adopted  the  Italian  cause  heart  and 
soul,  and  done  what  was  in  her  to  do,  for  its  advancement. 
The  honor  was  rendered  the  more  signal,  and  the  more 
acceptable,  from  the  fact  that  the  same  had  recently  been 
rendered  by  the  same  body  to  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

*  I  do  not  remember  that  little  Bice  ever  consoled  herself  under  the  dis- 
grace of  such  captivity  as  my  present  wife  has  confessed  to  me  that  she 
did  when  suffering  under  the  same  condemnation.  Her  method  of  com- 
bining the  maintenance  of  personal  dignity  with  revenge  on  the  oppressor 
was  to  say  to  the  first  person  who  came  to  take  her  out  of  prison,  "  No, 
you  can't  come  into  my  parlor !" 


CHAPTER   XXXVIII. 

DEATU  OF  MR.  GARROW. PROTESTANT  CEMETERY. ANGEL 

IN    THE    HOUSE    NO    MORE. 

The  house  in  the  Piazza  dell'  Incleiiendenza  which  was 
known  in  the  city  as  "  Villino  Trollope,"  and  of  which  I 
have  spoken  at  tlie  close  of  the  last  chapter,  was  ray  j)rop- 
erty,  and  I  had  lived  in  it  nearly  the  whole  of  my  married 
life.  During  that  time  four  deaths  had  occurred  among 
its  inmates. 

The  first  to  happen  was  that  of  the  old  and  highly  val- 
ued servant  of  wliDin  I  had  occasion  to  speak  when  upon 
the  subject  of  Mr.  Hume's  spiritualistic  exi)eriences  at  my 
house.  She  had  been  for  many  years  a  much  trusted  and 
beloved  servant  in  the  family  of  Mr.  Garrow  at  Torquay, 
and  had  accompanied  them  abroad.  Iler  name  was  Eliza- 
beth Shinner.  Her  death  was  felt  by  all  of  us  as  that  of 
a  member  of  our  family,  and  she  lies  in  the  Protestant 
cemetery  at  Florence  by  the  side  of  her  former  master, 
and  of  the  young  mistress  whom  she  had  loved  as  a  child 
of  her  own. 

The  next  to  go  was  Mr.  Garrow.  His  death  was  a  very 
sudden  and  unexpected  one.  He  was  a  robust  and  aj^par- 
ently  perfectly  healthy  man.  I  was  absent  from  home 
when  he  die<l.  I  liad  gone  with  a  Cornishman,  a  Mr.  Tre- 
wlu'lla,  who  was  <lesirous  of  visiting  Mr.  Sloane's  copper 
mine,  in  the  neigliborhood  of  Voltcrra,  of  which  I  have 
bifcjre  spoken.  We  had  accomj)lished  our  visit,  and  were 
returning  over  the  Apennine  about  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing in  a  little  b<ifjherino,  as  the  country  cart-gigs  are  called, 
when  we  were  hailed  by  a  man  in  a  similar  carriage  meet- 
ing us,  whom  I  n'cognizetl  as  the  forem.in  of  a  carpenter 
we  employed.  He  lunl  been  sent  to  find  me,  and  bring 
me  home  with  all  speetl,  in  consequence  of  the  sudden  ill- 
ness of  Mr.  Garrow.     As  far  as  I  couM  learn  from  him. 


518  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

there  was  little  probability  of  finding  my  father-in-law 
alive.  I  made  the  best  of  my  way  to  Florence.  But  he 
had  been  dead  several  hours  when  I  arrived.  He  had 
waked  with  a  paralytic  attack  on  him,  which  deprived  him 
of  the  power  of  moving  on  the  left  side,  and,  drawing  his 
face  awry,  made  speech  almost  impossible  to  him.  He 
assured  his  servant — who  was  almost  immediately  with 
him — speaking  with  much  difficulty,  that  it  was  nothing 
of  any  imj^ortance,  and  that  he  should  soon  get  over  it. 
But  these  were  the  last  words  he  ever  spoke,  and  in  two 
or  three  hours  afterwards  he  breathed  his  last. 

Then,  in  a  few  years  more,  the  crescendo  wave  of  trouble 
took  my  mother  from  me  at  the  age  of  eighty-three.  For 
the  last  two  or  three  years  she  had  entirely  lost  her  mem- 
ory, and  for  the  last  few  months  the  use  of  her  mental  fac- 
ulties. And  she  did  not  suffer  much.  The  last  words  she 
uttered  were  "  Poor  Cecilia  !" — her  mind  reverting  in  her 
latest  moments  to  the  child  whose  loss  had  been  the  most 
recent.  She  had  for  years  entertained  a  sjreat  horror  and 
dread  of  the  possibility  of  being  buried  alive,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  very  short  time  allowed  by  the  law  for  a 
body  to  remain  nnburied  after  death;  and  she  had  exacted 
from  me  a  promise  that  I  would  in  any  case  cause  a  vein 
to  be  opened  in  her  arm  after  death.  In  her  case  there 
could  be  no  possible  room  for  the  shadow  of  doubt  as  to 
the  certainty  of  death  ;  but  I  was  bound  by  my  promise, 
and  found  some  difficulty  in  the  performance  of  it.  The 
medical  man  in  attendance,  declaring  the  absolute  absurd- 
ity of  any  doubt  on  the  subject,  refused  to  perform  an 
operation  which,  he  said,  was  wholly  uncalled  for,  and  ar- 
gued that  my  promise  could  only  be  understood  to  apply 
to  a  case  of  possible  doubt.  I  had  none;  but  was  none  the 
less  determined  to  be  faithful  to  my  promise.  But  it  was 
not  till  I  declared  that  I  would  myself  sever  a  vein,  in 
however  butcher-like  a  manner,  that  I  induced  him  to  ac- 
company me  to  the  death-chamber  and  perform  under  my 
eyes  the  necessary  operation. 

I\[y  mother,  the  inseparable  companion  of  so  many  wan- 
derings in  so  many  lands,  the  indefatigable  laborer  of  so 
many  years,  found  her  rest  near  to  the  two  who  had  gone 


AXGEL   IN   THE   HOUSE  NO    MORE.  519 

from  my  house  before,  in  the  beautiful  little  cemetery  on 
which  the  Apenniuo  looks  down. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  this  sorrow  was  followed  by 
a  very  much  sorer  one — by  the  worst  of  all  that  could 
have  happened  to  me.  After  what  I  have  written  in  the 
last  chapter  it  is  needless  to  say  anything  of  the  blank  de- 
spair that  fell  upon  me  when  my  wife  died,  on  the  13th  of 
April,  1805.     She  also  lies  near  the  others. 

My  house  was  indeed  left  unto  me  desolate,  and  I 
thought  that  life  and  all  its  sweetness  was  over  for  me. 

I  immediately  took  measures  for  disposing  of  the  house 
in  the  Piazza  dell'  Independenza,  and  before  long  found  a 
purchaser  for  it.  I  had  bought  it  when  the  speculator, 
who  had  become  the  owner  of  the  ground  at  the  corner  of 
the  space  which  was  beginning  to  assume  the  semblance 
of  a  "  square"  or  "  piazza  "  had  put  in  the  foundations,  but 
had  not  proceeded  much  further  with  his  work.  I  com- 
j)leted  it,  improving  largely,  as  I  thought,  on  his  plan  ; 
adapted  it  for  a  single  residence,  instead  of  its  division 
into  sundry  dwellings  ;  obtained  possession  of  additional 
ground  between  the  house  and  the  city  wall,  sufhcient  for 
a  large  garden;  built  around  it,  looking  to  the  south,  the 
largest  and  handsomest  "stanzone"*  for  orange  and  lem- 
on plants  in  Florence,  and  gathered  together  a  collection 
of  very  fine  trees,  the  profits  from  which  (much  smaller 
in  my  hands  than  would  have  been  the  case  in  those  of  a 
Florentine  to  the  manner  born)  nevertheless  abundantly 
sufficed  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  garden  and  garden- 
ers. In  a  word,  I  made  the  ])lace  a  very  complete  and 
comfortable  residence.  Nearly  the  whoK"  of  my  first  mar- 
ried life  was  spent  in  it.  And  much  of  the  literary  work 
of  my  life  has  been  done  in  it. 

I  used  in  those  days,  and  for  very  many  years  after- 
wards, to  do  all  my  writing  standing ;  and  I  strongly  rec- 
(tinmeiid  the  practice  to  brotlier  cjiiill-drivers.  Pauses, 
often  considerable  intervals,  occur  for  tliouglit  while  the 

•  "  SUiizoiie  "  in  tlic  U-riii  used  in  Tuscany  to  sipnify  tlic  hiiildiiigs  dos- 
tincd  to  slieltcT  the  "  Aurumi,"  ««  tlio  onm^i'  and  lutnim  plants  are  called 
penerically,  in  the  winter;  whicl>  in  Florence  ifl  too  auvere  to  periuit  of 
their  being  left  in  the  open  air. 


520  WHAT  I  REMEMBER. 

pen  is  in  the  hand.  And  if  one  is  seated  at  a  table,  one 
remains  sitting  during  these  intervals.  But  if  one  is  stand- 
ing, it  becomes  natural  to  one,  during  even  a  small  pause, 
to  take  a  turn  up  and  down  the  room,  or  even,  as  I  often 
used  to  do,  in  the  garden.  And  such  change  and  move- 
ment I  consider  eminently  salutary  both  for  mind  and 
body. 

I  had  specially  contrived  a  little  window  immediately 
above  the  desk  at  which  I  stood,  fixed  to  the  wall.  The 
room  looking  on  the  "  loggia,"  which  was  the  scene  of  the 
little  poem  transcribed  in  the  preceding  chapter,  was  abun- 
dantly lighted,  but  I  liked  some  extra  light  close  to  my 
desk. 

In  that  room  my  Bice  was  born.  For  it  was  subsequent- 
ly to  her  birth  that  the  destination  of  it  was  changed  from 
a  bedroom  to  a  study. 

Few  men  have  passed  years  of  more  uncheckered  hap- 
piness than  I  did  in  that  house.    And  I  was  very  fond  of  it. 

But.  as  ma}^  readily  be  imagined,  it  became  all  the  more 
odious  and  intolerable  to  me  when  the  "  angel  in  the 
house  "  had  been  taken  from  me. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

CONCLUSION. 

Assuredly  it  seemed  to  me  that  all  was  over,  and  the 
future  a  dead  blank  ;  and  for  a  time  I  was  as  a  man 
stunned. 

But  in  truth  it  was  very  far  otherwise.  I  was  fifty- 
five  ;  but  I  was  in  good  health,  young  for  my  years, 
strong  and  vigorous  in  constitution,  and  before  a  year  had 
passed  it  began  to  seem  to  me  that  a  future,  and  life  and 
its  prospects,  might  open  to  me  afresh ;  that  the  curtain 
might  be  dropped  on  the  drama  that  Avas  passed,  and  a 
new  phase  of  life  begun. 

I  had  had  and  vividly  enjoyed  an  entire  life,  according 
to  the  measure  that  is  meted  out  to  many,  perhaps  I  may 
say  to  most  men.  But  I  felt  myself  ready  for  another. 
And — thanks  this  time  also  to  a  woman — I  have  had  an- 
other, in  no  xcise  less  happy,  in  some  respects,  as  less 
checkered  by  sorrows  —  more  happy  than  the  fii'st.  I  am 
in  better  health  too,  having  outgrown,  apparently,  several 
of  the  maladies  which  young  people  are  subject  to. 

Of  this  second  life  I  am  not  now  going  to  tell  my  read- 
ers anything.  "  AVhat  I  remember"  of  my  first  life  may 
be,  and  I  hope  has  been,  told  frankly,  without  givJTig  of- 
fence or  annijyance  to  any  human  being.  I  don't  know 
that  the  telling  of  the  story  of  my  second  life  would  nec- 
essarily lead  me  to  say  anything  which  could  hurt  any- 
body. But,  mixed  up  as  its  incidents  and  interests  and 
associations  have  been  with  a  great  multitude  of  men 
and  women  still  living  and  moving  an<l  talking  and  writ- 
ing round  al)out  me,  I  should  not  feci  myself  so  com- 
fortably at  liberty  to  write  whatever  oiTered  itself  to  my 
njemory. 

Ten  years  hence,  perhaps  ("I'icast'  (iod,  the  ])ublic 
lives  !"  as  a  speculative  showman   said),  I  may  tell  tho 


^22  AVIIAT   I   REMEMBER. 

reader,  if  he  cares  to  hear  it,  the  story  of  my  second  life. 
For  the  present  we  will  break  off  here. 

But  not  without  some  words  of  parting  kindness — and, 
shall  Ave  say,  wisdom  ! — from  an  old  man  to  readers,  most 
of  whom  probably  might  be  his  sons,  and  many  doubtless 
his  grandsons. 

Especially,  my  young  friends,  don't  pay  overmuch  at- 
tention to  what  the  Psalmist  says  about  "  the  years  of 
man."  I  knew  dans  le  temps  a  fine  old  octo-  and  nearly 
nonogenarian,  one  Griiberg  de  Hemso,  a  Swede  (a  man 
with  a  singular  history,  who  passed  ten  years  of  his  early 
life  in  the  British  navy,  and  was,  when  I  knew  him,  libra- 
rian at  the  Pitti  Palace  in  Florence),  who  used  to  com- 
plain of  the  Florentine  doctors  that  "  Dey  doosen't  know 
what  de  nordern  constitooshions  is  !"  and  I  take  it  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  Psalmist.  Ten  years  beyond 
threescore  and  ten  need  not  be  all  sorrow  and  trouble. 
Depend  upon  it,  kindly  nature — pnidens,  as  that  jolly  old 
fellow,  fine  gentleman,  and  true  i)hilosopher,  Horace,  says 
in  a  similar  connection — kindly  nature  knows  how  to  make 
the  closing  decade  of  life  every  whit  as  delightful  as  any 
of  the  preceding,  if  only  you  don't  balk  her  purposes. 
Don't  weigh  down  your  souls,  and  pin  your  particles  of 
divine  essence  to  earth  by  your  yesterday's  vices;  be  sure 
that  when  you  cannot  jump  over  the  chairs  so  featly  as 
you  can  now,  you  will  not  Avant  to  do  so  ;  tell  the  girls, 
with  genial  old  Anacreon,  when  the  time  comes,  that 
whether  the  hairs  on  your  forehead  be  many  or  few,  you 
know  not,  but  do  know  well  that  it  behooves  an  old  man 
to  be  cheery  in  proportion  to  tlic  propinquity  of  his  exit, 
and  go  on  your  way  rejoicing  through  this  beautiful  world, 
which  not  even  the  Radicals  have  quite  spoiled  yet. 

And  so  d  rivederci — au  revoir — cmf  Wiedersehn — why 
have  we  no  English  equivalent  better  than  "Here's  to  our 
next  pleasant  meeting !" 


INDEX. 


Abbaye-acx-Bois,  at  the,  188,  189. 
Abbey,    Reading,    Mary     Mitford's 

project  concerning,  498. 
Aberdeen,  Lord,  and  Lord  Cowley, 

310. 
Abingdon  Road,  pedestrian  feat  on, 

151. 
Abrams,  the  Misses,  329. 
Absolute,  Sir  A.,  my  representation 

of,  416. 
Academical  career,  my,  a  failure,  150. 
Acheron  pavement,  156. 
Ackland,  Captain,  446. 
Adam,  Sir  Frederick,  479. 
Adam  the  forger,  Dante's,  454. 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  Grattan  on, 

503. 
Adventure  on  the  Danube,  216,  217. 
Advertising,  moilern,  31,  32. 
Affinities,  elective,  382. 
Age  not  cDuntud  by  years,  485. 
Alabama,  Miss  Wrigiil's  property  in, 

107. 
Aladdin's  lamp,  G.  Eliot  wishes  for, 

479. 
Albiin  Hall,  I  matriculate  at,  132  ;  a.s 

it  wdn  under  Wliately,  133;  nicm- 

bership  of,  disastnjus  to  nie,  146  ; 

cause  of  my  quitting  it,  146. 
Albuni,  Marglierita,  479. 
Aibt-ri,  Signor,  4(>5,  421. 
Albcrta/./i  in  184(>,  3ir». 
Ale  versun  claret,  33. 
Alexi.s,  thought-reader  of  Paris,  272. 
Aliiiari,    photographer   at   Florence, 

441. 
All  theViar  Rourul,  contributions  to, 

358. 
Alleghany  Mountains,  beauty  of,  115. 
America,  my  brother's  book  on,  criti- 

ci.'ed  by  Lewes,  479;  Irish  in,  Grat- 
tan on,  5(»0. 
American  lady  at  Tuileries,  313. 


American  stabbed  at  Naples,  8. 
Americans,  my  experience  of,  117, 

118,  126,   127;  rigging  a  sledge, 

240 ;  at  the  Pitti  Palace,  347 ;  an- 
ecdote of,  347 ;  meeting  Lewes  at 

G.  P.  Marsh's,  465. 
Amiens,  excursion  to,  325,  326. 
Ampere,  his  ehge  at   the  Academy 

by  Arago,  315. 
Amphytrion,  Venice  as,  384. 
Amusements  of  childhood,  15. 
Anabaptist,  10,  11. 
Anacreon  on  old  age,  522. 
Angelico,  Fra,  256. 
Antagonism  with  G.  Eliot,  subject  of, 

484. 
Antagonist,  G.  Eliot  as  an,  484. 
Antiboini,  the,  449. 
Antiques,  modern,  in  "  Our  Tillage," 

499. 
Antonelli,  Cardinal,  449.    . 
Antwerp,  from,  to  Dover,  240. 
Apennines,     grand    duke    crossing 

the,  350,'  figure  representing  the, 

by  Miciiael  Angelo,  421 ;  scenery 

among  tl.c,  455,  456. 
Apoplexy,  man  dying  of,  anecdote  of, 

412. 
Apponv,  Comte  d',  his  receptions  in 

Paris,  315. 
April  fool,  Grattan  an,  501. 
Arago,  M.,  at  the  Academy,  316. 
Arcliiiuchess  Sophie,  493. 
Arehduchesses,  sweetness  of,  491. 
Arez/.o,  marshes  near,  348;  Pulszky 

at,  433  ;  G.  Eliot  wishes  to  see,  482. 
Arislolle's  "Ethics,"   162;  Natural 

S<iencc,  478. 
Arithmetic,  ignorance  of,  l»i2. 
.\rmy,    Tuscan,   attitude   of,    at  the 

Uevolulioii,  422,  423. 
"Arnaldo  da  lirescia,"   Niccolini's, 

6o7. 


624 


INDEX. 


Arno  river  in  flood,  342,  343;  the, 

454. 
Articulation,  George  Eliot's,  468. 
Ashley,  Lord,  letter  from,  280. 
Aspirates,  Laudor  used  to  drop  thoni, 

440. 
Aspirations,  early,  276. 
Athoupiim,  my  wife's  letters  in  the, 

607,  508. 
Atlantic,  passaj^e  across,  110-114. 
Atlantic  .)fo7ithli/  on  Landor,  441. 
Aubrey,  Miss,  330. 
Aumale,  Duke  of,  311. 
Aunt,  Dante'.*,  471. 
Aural  circulation,  Lewes  on,  477. 
"Aurora   Leigh,"  Mrs.  Browning's, 

396. 
Austen,  Miss,   45 ;    Mary  Mitford's 

idol,  496. 
Austin,  Alfred,  453. 
Austria,  Mary  Mitford  on,  498 ;  Na- 
poleon   III.'s    negotiations    with, 

398. 
Austrian  empire,  heterogeneousness 

of,  226 ;  troops  in  Floi'once,  390, 

406 ;  officers,  anecdote  of,  390. 
Authority  of  prefects  at  Winchester, 

87. 
Authorship,  my  first,  104. 
Autohiographv,  my  brother's,  158; 

G.Eliot  on," 485. 
Autograph  collectors,  440. 
Autograph  of  Byron,  remarkable,  64. 
Autolycus,  his  song,  276. 
Auvergnats  at  Pari.s,  183. 
Auvergne,  pedestriauizing   in,  321 ; 

dialect  of,  321. 
Ayhner,  Admiral,  446;  Lord,  416. 
Azeglio,  Massino  d',  anecdote  of,  341. 

Baby  Beatrice,  512. 

"  Backwoodsman,  Young,"  Mary  Mit- 
ford asks  about,  494. 

Baden  in  Switzerland,  486. 

"  Badger,"  my  nickname  at  Win- 
chester, 118. 

Badger-baiting,  Winchester,  75,  76. 

Bagni  Caldi  at  Lucca  Baths,  305. 

Bai.e,  excursion  to,  G.  Eliot's,  483. 

Balzac's  suppressed  play,  335. 

Bamberg,  12;  Baroness  Zandt  at, 
325. 

Banagher,  my  brother  at,  327. 

Bancroft,  the  Historian,  Grattan  on, 
603  ;  his  anti-Whig  i)olitics,  503. 


Barbarus,  Hermolaus,  478. 

Barclay,  Captain,  151. 

Bardi  family,  the,  at  Florence,  474. 

Barge,  from  Bruges  to  Ostend,  201. 

Bargollo,  at  Florence,  Dante's  por- 
trait in,  442. 

Baritone  of  our  way,  Lewes,  477. 

Barrett,  Elizabeth,  at  Torquay,  391 ; 
Theodosia  Garrow's  appreciation 
of,  392 ;  her  affection  for  Isa  Blag- 
den,  393  ;  Landor  on,  445  ;  Mary 
Mitford's  admiration  for,  498. 

Bartley,  Mr.,  and  Mary  Mitford,  499. 

Bartolomei,  Marchese,  389. 

Bath,  and  W.  S.  Landor,  443. 

Bathing,  death  from  excessive,  202, 
203. 

Batten,  Rev.  Mr.,  50. 

Bavaria,  ramble  in,  325. 

Bay-tree,  Wordsworth's,  284. 

Beacon  Terrace,  Torquay,  Mrs. 
Browning  at,  402. 

"  Beata,  La,"  my  novel,  Lewes  and  G. 
Eliot  on,  475 ;  Mrs.  Carlyle  on, 
476. 

Beatrice,  my  daughter,  George  Eliot 
on,  477. 

Beattie's  "Young  Edwin,"  illus- 
trated, 155. 

Beaufort,  Duke  of,  448. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  2. 

Bedford  Square,  2. 

Bedsteads  at  Winchester,  92,  93. 

Beer-cellar  at  Winchester,  70. 

Belgian  cities,  tour  among,  170. 

Belgiojoso,  Princess,  198. 

Belgium,  tour  with  Fanny  Bent  in, 
175,  176. 

Belial,  Bishop,  Landor  calls  Philpotts 
a,  444. 

Bell,  Jockey,  33. 

Bcllosguardo,  at  Florence,  393. 

Ben  Jonson's  superstition,  Mary  Mit- 
ford on,  498. 

Benjamin,  my  mother's,  491. 

Bent,  Fanny,  23,  26,  171,  175,  176. 

Bi'nt,  Mary,  23. 

Bent,  Rev'  John,  23. 

Bentley,  Mr.  Richard,  182. 

"  Beppo  the  Conscript "  written  in 
twenty-four  days,  248,  249. 

Bereavements,  different,  488. 

Berkeley,  Grantley,  and  Landor,  446. 

Berington's  "  Middle  Ages,"  380. 

Berryer,  194. 


INDEX. 


525 


Berti  Paluzzo,  in  Florence,  337,  338. 

Bezzi,  Signor  A.,  and  Landor,  442- 
444. 

Bible,  persecution  for  reading  the, 
348. 

Bier,  open,  used  in  Florence,  410. 

"  Biglow  Papers,"  Lowell's,  470. 

Biographies,  G.  Eliot  on,  485. 

Birmingham,  mastership  at,  offered 
me,  176;  delays  and  disappoint- 
ments atjout  it,  177,  178;  con- 
tinued disappointment,  204  ;  I  as- 
sume my  duties  at,  242;  difficulties 
of  them,"  243 ;  my  life  at,  245,  24G  ; 
I  resign  my  position  at,  247 ;  my 
return  from,  488. 

Bismarck  and  Metternich,  contrast 
between,  228,  220. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  228,  229. 

Blackbird,  Song  of  the,  513. 

Black  Down,  Tennyson's  house  at, 
408. 

Black  Forest,  Leweses  in  the,  482. 

Blackwood's  Afagazine,  Mary  Mitford 
on,  496. 

Blagden,  Isa,  Miss,  303  ;  her  poems, 
393 ;  her  death,  394 ;  note  from, 
394;  Lewes  inquires  after,  478; 
and  George  Eliot,  484. 

Blamlford  Scjuare,  Lcwescs  at,  474. 

Blaze  dc  Bury,  Madame,  324. 

Blessiiigton,  Lady,  -112,  445. 

Bloomsbury  Sipiare,  2. 

Boat  on  the  Danube,  description  of, 
214,  21.-). 

Bob  Acres,  mv  representation  of, 
416. 

Boboli  Gardens,  the,  at  Florence, 
421  ;  anecdote  of  Ladv  Bulwer  iu, 
333.  '  I 

Boliemia,  grand  duke's  estates  in,  34  6,  , 

Bohemian  wagoni/rs,  226.  | 

Bologna,  grand  duke  on  way  to,  350; 
Austrians  at,  308;  "la  tJrassa," 
410. 

Boodli,  Landor  on,  447. 

"  Book  of  Hiauiy,"  Lady  Blessing- 
ton's,  402,  4».-). 

Booksellers,  Landor  eschews  nil,  447. 
iSordi'uux,  couvi-rsalions  iit,  321. 
I{i)rgi>,  San  Sepolcro,  Pulsxky  ut,  433. 
Hdsco,  Ihf  conjurer,  274. 
Uifton  ('onsulate,  (irattan  on  leave 
from,  501);  Society  of,  (Jrattan  on 
the,  602. 


"  Boto,"  Florentine  for  "  Yoto,"  475. 

Bourbonnais,  travels  in,  321. 

Boutourlin  family,  337. 

Bowcn,  Colonel,  268. 

Bower,  Fuiigy,  102. 

Bowritig,  Lucy,  28. 

Bowring,  Sir  John,  27. 

Boy,  whole  duty  of,  9. 

Braddons,  the,  "at  Torquay,  381,  391. 

Brahmin  Princess,  my  wife's  grand- 
mother, 506. 

Brest,  293. 

Bretons,  changes  in  character  of,  288. 

Brewster,  Sir  David,  261,  262. 

Brightness,  mv  mother's  value  for, 
490. 

Briitanv,  summer  in,  210;  book  on, 
287,  288,  202  ;  costume  in,  290. 

Broons  in  Brittany,  costume  of,  290, 
291;  innkeeper's  daughter  at,  290, 
291. 

Brougham  Castle,  299. 

Browning,  Elizabetli  Barrett,  special- 
ties of  her  character,  392, 393  ;  let- 
ters from,  395-403  ;  on  Napoleon 
IIL,  398,  399  ;  her  absolute  truth- 
fulness, 400  ;  and  Tlieodosia  Gar- 
row,  402;  her  handwriting,  400; 
her  death,  Lewes  on,  476 ;  on 
Tlieodosia  Trollope's  faculty,  506. 

Browning,  Oscar,  481. 

Browning,  Robert,  403  ;  at  Florence, 
392  ;  ids  care  for  Landor  in  Flor- 
ence, 440. 

Brown's  "Vulgar  Errors,"  152. 

Bruges,  I  join  my  parents  at,  168; 
return  to,  .June,  1S35,  201  ;  my 
mother  quits,  2o7. 

Bull.  Rev.  Mr.,  of  Bradford,  281. 

Buller,  Dean,  27. 

Bidlock,  Reuben,  280. 

Bully,  an  Irish,  372. 

Bullviiig  at  Harrow,  54. 

B\ilwer,  Henry,  at  Paris,  305. 

Bulwer,  Lady,  at  Florence,  332 ;  her 
character,  332,  333;  anecdote  of, 
3.S3,  336  ;  in  Boboli  (Janiens,  333  ; 
letters  from  her,  3:!4-;i;i('i. 

Bulwer,  Lonl,  [,aiidor  on,  147. 

BtU'ial,  of   Byron's  dungliter  at  Har- 
row, 64 ;  manner  «)f,  in  Florence, 
410;  premature,  fear  of,  518. 
Burridgc,  Lainlor's  landlady  at  Tor- 
quay, 443. 
nurtoiV.s  "  AnaUuny,"  152. 


526 


INDEX. 


Butcher's  wife,  anecdote  of  the,  311. 

Butler,  Rev.  Dr.,  50,  51,  62. 

Butt,  Dr.,  M.D.,  65,  56. 

Butter  not  used  by  Tuscans,  454. 

Bvron,  Lord,  64,  396. 

Cadogan,  Lady  Ilonoria,  315. 
Caen,  bookseller  at,  anecdote  of,  210, 

211. 
Caerniarthen  in  assize  time,  153. 
"  Cain,"  Byron's,  Harry  Drury  and 

the  vicar  on,  G4. 
Calais,  journey  to,  108;  journey  from, 

to  Osteud,  169  ;  crossing  to,  Lewes 

on,  483. 
Calling  "Domura"   at  Winchester, 

75. 
Calomel,  use  of,  41. 
Camaldoli,  Sagro  Ercmo,  porter  at, 

1 ;  with  George  Eliot  to,  421,  450, 

463  ;  Padre  forest ieraio  at,  466. 
Cambridge,  near  Boston,  notable  men 

there,  503. 
Canada,  503. 
Cancellieri,  Francesco,  his  mode  of 

writing,  295. 
Cane  versus  rod,  244. 
Canigiani  family  at  Florence,  476. 
Canino,  Prince,  385 ;  is  marched  off 

to  the  frontier,  386;   his  sale  of 

his  title,  385 ;    his    personal    ap- 
pearance, 385,  386. 
Canterbury,  walk  in  snow  to,  241. 
Capstone  Ilill,  at  Ilfracombe,  330. 
Caravan,  summnm  hoiiuin,  323. 
Carev,  translator  of  Dante,  with  Miss 

Mitford,  499. 
Carlo,  San,  theatre  at  Naples,  George 

Eliot  at,  483. 
Carlsruhe,  304. 
Carlton  Hill  at  Penrith,  330. 
Carlyle,    Mrs.,   her    description     of 

personal  appearance   of  Dickens, 

355 ;  on  my  novel,  "  La  Beata," 

476, 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  31,  182;    his    de- 

8cri|)tion  of  Dickens'  person,  351  ; 

Landor    on,   447 ;    and    Anthony 

Trollope,  476. 
Carmelite  monastery,  library  at,  170. 
Carnival  at  Rome,  408  ;  at  Florence, 

408. 
"  Casa  Colonica,"  Tuscan,  405. 
Cascntiiio,  the,  462. 
Casino  dei  Nobili  at  Florence,  345. 


Casuistry,  extraordinary,  170. 

Catacombs  at  Vienna,  237. 

Cathedral  in  Florence  and  Mr.  Sloane, 
337  ;  burial  of  priest  in,  anecdote 
of,  410. 

Cathedral  service  sixty  years  ago,  58, 
59. 

Catherine's,  St.,  Hill,  Winchester,  74, 
75. 

Cavour,  my  wife's  account  of  his 
death,  George  Eliot  on,  477. 

Cemeterv,  Protestant,  at  Florence, 
517,  519.  . 

Chad  wick,  Captain,  110,  111. 

Chalk-pit  on  St.  Catherine's  Hill,  77. 

Chambers  at  Winchester,  92 ;  disci- 
pline in,  93,  94. 

Champion,  the,  at  the  Pitti,  anecdote 
of,  346. 

Chancery  Lane,  33. 

Chancery  report,  extraordinary,  34. 

Changes,  social,  17-20. 

Changing  horses,  coach,  25. 

Channing,  Dr.,  of  Boston,  Grattan 
on,  503. 

Chapel-going  at  Winchester,  96. 

Chaplains  at  Winchester,  97,  98. 

Chapman,  General,  43. 

Chaporie,  Mrs.,  169. 

Cliappell,  Mr.  Arthur,  dinner  with, 
361. 

Ciiaracter  from  school,  my,  17. 

Charity  at  Winchester  and  at  Har- 
row, 54. 

Charles  Dix,  184. 

Charlotte,  Princess,  11. 

Chailolte,  Queen,  163. 

Chateaubrianil,  187-190,  335. 

Chateau  d'Uondt,  at  Bruges,  169. 

Cheapness  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca, 
366. 

Cheddar  Cliffs,  excursion  to,  131. 

Chelsea,  tea  at,  476. 

Cilia ja  at  Naples,  George  Eliot  on 
the,  483. 

Chiana,  draining  marshes  of,  348. 

Cliianti  wine,  juice  of,  344. 

Chiusi,  marslK.'S  near,  348. 

Chorlev,  Heni'v,  and  Mary  Mitford, 
498;  at  Heckfiold,498. 

Church,  the,  Landor  on,  447. 

Church,  English,  Dickens  on  the,  362. 

Cincinnati,  my  mother's  house  at, 
116;  country  around,  117;  Pow- 
ers, Hiram,  at,  123,  124;  life  at. 


INDEX. 


527 


124-126;  theatricals  at,  126;  plans 
at,  128. 
Citta  di  Castello,  Pulszky  at,  433. 
Claret  versus  ale,  32. 
Clarke,  Miss  (Mine.  Mohl),  188,  197, 

315,335. 
Class,  third,  given  me,  149. 
Classical  lesson,  giving,  in  London, 

171. 
"Classicus   paper"  at  Winchester, 

102. 
Clements,  Mrs.,  245. 
Clemow,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  of  the  Royal 

Hotel,  Ilfracombe,  330. 
Clergv,  French,  in  1840,317;  Giiizot 

on  the,  317. 
Clergyman's    escape  from    burning 

ship,  144. 
Clericalism  at  Florence,  409. 
Clifden,  Turbot  at,  328. 
Coaches,  names  of,  5. 
Coachman,  24,  25. 
"Cobbler,  Northern,  The,"  read  by 

Tennyson,  409. 
Cocked  hat  of  master  at  Winchester 

disused,  82. 
Coincidence,  singular,  130. 
Coins  in  use  at  Florence,  343. 
Coker,  Mrs.,  330. 
Colburn,  Mr.,  289 ;  and  Lady  Bulwer, 

335. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  208. 
Colico  on  Lake  C<jmo,  505. 
College  and  commons  at  Winchester, 

54. 
Collin.s  Wilkie,  story  by,  358 ;  dinner 

witli,  3til. 
Colloquial   use  of  a  language  must 

be  learned  young,  419. 
Cologne,  304. 

Coloiina  Victoria.  463,  464. 
Columbia,  near  Cincinnati,  Mr.  Long- 
worth's  estate,  1  22. 
"  Commercial    gentlemen, "    dinner 

with,  153,  154. 
Common.'!,  Houneof,  Dickenson,  862. 
"Comnionwcalth   of    Florence,"  my 

history  of  llu",  •!  17. 
Como,  Lake   of,  505 ;   (Jeorge  Eliot 

at,  4HI). 
"Compagiiatico,"  Tuscan,  4'»1. 
C<)mpo.-*iii<jn,(»eorge  Eliot's  diflicully 

in,    481  ;     litenirv,    Graltan    on, 

.'.01. 
Confectioner  revisited,  2. 


"  Confessor's  Manual,"  357. 
Congress,  member  of,  503. 
Congresses,  Italian    Scientific,   383, 

384. 
Conservatism  forced  on  me,  484. 
Consolation,  child's,  in  confinement, 
516  n. 

Consul,  British,  at  Boston,  Grattah, 
5nO;  Mr.  Grattau  addressed  as, 
503. 

Consulship  at  Boston,  Grattan  on 
the,  503. 

Consultations  and  plans,  my  moth- 
er's and  mine,  331. 

"Contadini,"  Tuscan,  404. 

"  Continent "  at  Winchester,  83. 

Conversation  sixty  years  since,  anec- 
dote of,  160. 

Convocation,  Dickens  on,  359. 

Copper  mine  near  Volterra,  518. 

Corpierel,  Athanase,  his  preaching, 
316. 

"  Corduroy  "  roads,  115. 

Corinne,  a  new,  383. 

Corinthian,  the  ship,  110. 

Cornhill  Magazine,  394. 

Cornish  jury,  verdict  of,  439. 

Corporal  punishment,  objections  to, 
80,  81. 

Correggio,  book  on,  by  Signor  Mig- 
natyi^479. 

Correspondence  of  London  paper, 
484. 

"Country  Stories,"  Mary  Mitford's, 
498. 

Courage,  my  boyish  notion  of,  50. 

Couiier,  Austrian,  239. 

Court,  American  Supreme,  Judge 
Story  of  the,  503. 

Cousin,  190;  his  philosophy  obsolete, 
317. 

Covent  Gard(>n  Theatre,  Mary  Mit- 
ford's play  at,  4'.K>. 

Cowley,  Lady,  as  ambassadress,  310. 

Cowley,  Lord,  ambassador  in  Paris, 
310. 

Cowper's  home  at  Olney,  Mary  Mit- 
ft.rd  on,  4 '.»'.». 

Cramer,  John,  '.12,225,371. 

"  Cra/y  Jane,"  authoress  of,  377. 

Crcditon,  near  Exeter,  23. 

Cricket,  changes  in,  !••:{. 

Crime  almo.st  unknown  in  Grand- 
ducal  Flori'Tice,  407. 

Croatian  gypsies,  22C. 


528 


INDEX. 


Cioce,  Santa,  church  of,  in  Florence, 

and  Mr.  Sloane,  337. 
Cross,   Mr.,  his    "Life    of    George 

Eliot,"  401. 
Cross,  St.,  near  \yinchester,  75. 
Cruikshank  and  Lady  Biihver,  334. 
Cunningham,  Rev.  Mr.,  62,  63,  105. 
Curwen,  Mr.,  flooding  of  his  mine, 

499. 

Dallixg,  Lord,  at  Paris,  305 ;  at 
Florence,  305. 

Dali'  Ongaro,  the  poet,  399,  401,  427. 

Dannecker,  the  sculptor,  217. 

Dante,  his  portrait  at  Florence,  442. 

Dante's  holgia,  representation  of,  at 
Cincinnati,  123,  124. 

Danube,  boats  on,  212,  213. 

Deak,  Pulszlcy's  visits  to,  434. 

Dean  Rennell,  a  Platouist,  99,  100; 
anecdotes  of,  100. 

Deans,  cousins  of  Mary  Mitfoni, 
497. 

Death  in  the  street  at  Florence,  anec- 
dote of,  412. 

Death  of  Lewes's  son,  485. 

Deathbeds,  taste  for,  George  Eliot's, 
477. 

Debating  society  at  Birmingham,  245. 

Decade  of  Italian  women,  my  book 
on,  417. 

Decade,  last  of  life,  521 ;  how  to  en- 
joy the,  522. 

Decision,  a  niomenton.5,  331. 

Deck,  nights  on,  110,  111. 

Degree,  examination  for  my,  149 ;  I 
take  my,  178. 

D'Henin,  306;  Mdlle.,  307;  her  let- 
ters to  my  mother,  307  et  seq. ;  at 
Tuileries  ball,  310,  311;  her  death, 
313. 

"Dehors  Trompeurs,  Les,"  Mdlle. 
Mars  in,  314. 

DiHrant  reffes  pleduntur  Achivi,  147. 

Delirium,  my,  in  typhus,  55. 

Democrat,  Le,  French  newspaper, 
anecdote  of,  318. 

De  Morgan,  253. 

Departure  of  the  duke  from  Flor- 
ence, 423. 

Deputies,  Chamber  of,  opening  of, 
in  1840,  309;  at  the,  316. 

Desk,  writing,  standing  at,  520. 

Devonport  Mail  (Quicksilver),  23. 

Devonshire  farmer,  a,  389. 


De  Whelpdale,  lord  of  manor,  Pen- 
rith,  304. 

Dexter,  Arthur,  of  Boston,  470. 
Dialect,  provincial,  afTeeted,  26  ; 
Devonshire,  30;  Florentine,  418; 
anecdote  of  lady  speaking,  418, 
419;  provincial,  as  read  by  Tenny- 
son, 469  ;  George  Eliot  on  use  of, 
475. 
Dialectical  Society,  letter  to  the,  266. 

Dibden,  Dr.,  277 ;  his  preaching,  277. 

Dickens,  Charles,  20;  first  meeting 
with,  351;  personal  appearance  of 
in  early  youth,  351 ;  subsequently, 
351-353;  was  near-sighted,  353; 
his  manner,  353  ;  his  so-called  ex- 
aggerations, 354;  his  character, 
354,  355  ;  his  opinions  on  Italy, 
356  ;  on  public  schools,  356 ;  let- 
ters from,  356-362;  on  convoca- 
tions, 359;  on  Gibson  the  sculptor, 
359,  360  ;  on  Italian  political  situ- 
ation, 300;  on  Louis  Napoleon, 
300 ;  on  Home,  the  Medium,  360  ; 
introduces  me  to  my  first  wife, 
301 ;  on  the  general  elections,  30 1 ; 
on  the  House  of  Commons,  302 ; 
on  the  English  Church,  302;  on 
my  brother's  standing  for  Bever- 
ley, 362  ;  last  letter  from,  363. 

Dickson,  Colonel,  203. 

Dinner,  in  hall  at  Winchester,  73  ; 
«ith  the  Austrian  mail,  239;  go- 
ing with  glee  to,  489. 

Director  of  Museum,  Posth,  436. 

Disaffection  in  Tuscanv,  beginning 
of,  405.  " 

Discipline  by  night  at  Winchester, 
84,  85. 

Dispers  at  Winchester,  72. 

Dissenters  sixty  years  ago,  46. 

Distribution  of  rations  at  Winches- 
ter, 73. 

Divinity  lectures  at  Oxford,  168. 

Docks,  the,  7. 

Dohcrty,  John,  280. 

Dolgelly,  ancient  custom  at,  154. 

Doney's  cofTee-liouse  at  Florence,  342. 

Don  Giovanni,  Protestant,  367,  375. 

Don.s,  Oxford,  disliked  Whately,  136. 

Door  of  Fourth  Chamber,  anecdote, 
04. 

Dorfeuille,  M.,  122,  12.3. 

Dormitories  at  Winchester,  92. 

Douarnencz,  sardine  fishing,  etc.,  293. 


IXDEX. 


529 


Doubt  of  death,  518. 

Dover  to  London  in  1834,  171  ;   un- 
der snow,  240. 

Doyle,  Sir  F.,  his  remini.^cences,  294. 

Dramatic  College,  Roval,  Dickens  at, 
356. 

Dresden  as  a  residence,  331. 

Drinking-song,  sung  by  Mr.  Du  Man- 
ner, 468. 

Driving,  in  AnQerica,l  15,11 6;  French, 
181. 

Dnirv  Lane  in  1834,  1G8. 

Drury,  Mrs.  Mark,  52,  53. 

DrurV,  Rev.  Harry,  50,  62-64. 

Drury,  Rev.  Mark,  50-53,  63. 

Drury,  Rev.  William,  50. 

Duels  at  Baths  of  Lucca,  373,  374. 

Duhm,  M.,  211. 

"Diilce  Domum,"  69. 

Du  Maurier,  Mr.,  487. 

Du  Maurier,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  468. 

Dunkirk,  journey  to,  169  ;  hospitable 
Frenchman  at,  169. 

Dupin  at  the  Chamber,  316. 

Dupin  and  Lady  Hulwci',  335. 

Dupotet,  Baron,  253,  254. 

Dustv  shoes,  172. 

Dv.-r^   L:idv,   12,  491  ;   General   Sir 
Thomas,' 12,  491. 

Dymock,  Champion,  at  Florence,  346. 

Easter  devotions,  454. 

Echo  song  in  "  Comus,"  translation 

of,  160. 
Edenhall,  in  Cumberland,  298;  luck 

of,  300,  SOI. 
Edgware  Road,  22. 
Edwards,  Mrs.,  55. 
Eldon,  Lord,  34,  267. 
Election   in    Ireland,   320 ;    ncncral, 

Dickens  on,  3tjl  ;  in  Hungary,  cost 

of,  434  ;  Hungarian,  436. 
Eliot,  fu'orgi.',  12.'i. 
Elliotson,  Dr.,  255-258. 
Elm    Court,  Temph',   Sergeant    Tal- 

founl's  address,  497. 
English   government    and    Tuscany, 

39«. 
Enf:li-<h   Inngungo,  not   taught,  101  ; 

George  Eliot  on  the,  471. 
Eiiuncintion,  George  Eliot's,  471. 
EotviiM,  Huron,  nnd  Tids/ky,  434. 
Eremo,    Sairro,    nt    Camahloli,   458; 

rul<'  tliiri-,  4.'>9,   ride  up  to,  458; 

inmates  of,  460 
23 


Error  in  "post-mark,  singular,  481. 
Erysipelas,  attack  of,  cured  bv  ho- 

ma?opathy,  493,  494. 
Esterhazy,  his  picture-gallery,  436. 
Eternal  City,  French  hated  in,  406. 
Evangelicanism,  10. 
Evans,  Rev.  Jlr.,  50. 
Events  in  life  dreaded  by  me,  50. 
Everett,  Ed.,  Grattan  on',  503. 
Examiner,  the,  criticism    of,  on   my 

first  wife's  letters,  6<i8. 
E.xchange  of  portraits,  492. 
E.xclusiveness,  social,  less   common 

than  formerly,  37. 
Exe,  valley  of  t'he,  27. 
Excmplum  viliis  imitabile,  248. 
Exeter  Cathedral,  27 ;    changes  in, 

29  ;  garden  in,  29,  30. 
Ex-governor,  pom{)ous,  and  Grattan, 

£03. 
Expectations,  my,  disappointed,  47. 
Experiences,  new,  114. 

Factory  legislation,  279,  280 ;  lords, 

leaders  of,  281. 
Faculty,  multiform,  my  first  wife's, 

506." 
Fads,  the  vicar's,  14,  15. 
Fagging  nt  Harrow,  54  ;  at  Winches- 
ter,  54 ;    difference   between    the 

two,  54. 
"Falkland"   in    the  Rivals,  by   Sir 

F.  Vincent,  416. 
Falstaff,  mv  impersonation  of,  126. 
"Falstaff  House,"  of  Dickens,  359. 
Falierona,  rivers    rising    in   Mount, 

370  ;  the  moimtain,  454. 
Fanny  Bent,  330. 
Farmer,  nurse,  10,  11. 
Farnham,  The  Bush,  60. 
Karrcii,  the  actor,  168. 
Fauehe,  Mr.  169,  2ii2. 
Fauclic,  Mrs.  169,  202,  209,  304. 
Fauriel,  M.,  316. 
Fayette,  La,  (Jeneral,  106,  189. 
Fellow-passengers  in  steerage,  110, 

112. 
F6lo,  national,  at  Florence,  479. 
Field,  Miss,  399  ;  a  favorite  with  Lan- 

dor,  441  ;  returns  his  present  of  a 

scrap-book,  441. 
Ficschi,  conspiriilor.  184. 
Fii'solc,  Landor'rt  villa  at,  353. 
Fifth  of  November  iu  College  Chapel, 

99 


530 


INDEX. 


Fighting  at  Wiuchester,  anecdote, 
'll8. 

Filippo  Strozzi,  my  book  on,  -4 17. 

Finance  committee,  Pesth,  Fulszlvy 
on,  436. 

Findeu's  tableau,  498. 

Fine  Arts  Society  at  Pestli,  Pulszky 
cliairman  of,  436. 

Finisterre,  at,  296 ;  anecdote  of,  296, 
297. 

Firenze  la  Gentile,  408 ;  no  longer 
such,  409. 

Firing  on  Florence,  orders  for,  423  ; 
duke  never  gave  such,  423. 

Firs  on  St.  Catherine's  Hill,  Win- 
chester, 76. 

Fisher,  Harriet,  my  wife's  half-sis- 
ter, 377,  515 ;  her  character,  378  ; 
her  death,  379  ;  her  brother,  379  ; 
always  a  peacemaker,  381 ;  her 
beneficent  influence,  388. 

Fives  at  Winchester,  102. 

Fives  hat,  peculiar,  103. 

Flanders,  French,  rambles  in,  201, 
323. 

Flavia,  verses  on,  by  my  first  wife, 
612. 

Fleece,  Golden,  installation  of  knights, 
236. 

Fleet  prison,  33. 

Flint,  Mrs.,  and  Mary  Mitford,  495. 

Flog,  word  not  used  at  Winchester, 
80. 

Flood  in  Florence,  341,  342. 

Florence  decided  on  as  a  residence, 
331 ;  departure  from  London  for, 
332;  society  of,  338  ;  flood  at,  341, 
342;  coins  in  use  at,  343;  cheap- 
ness of  life  at,  344  ;  police  at,  348, 
407;  revolution  at,  350;  number 
of  English  residing  at,  391;  singu- 
lar social  change  at,  407 ;  social 
changes  in,  causes  of,  409  ;  my 
History  of,  480;  Lewes  criticises, 
481 ;  leading  medical  practitioner 
at,  489. 

Florentine  nobles,  345 ;  character- 
istics, 412. 

"  Flower  de  Luce,"  the,  67. 

Flower-garden,  Mary  Mitfovd's,  499. 

Fonhlanque,  Mr.  Landor  on,  445. 

Fontebranda  fountain,  454. 

Fool,  April,  Grattan  is  made  an,  501. 

Foreign  Affairs  committee  at  Pesth, 
Pulszky  on,  436. 


Forest,    primeval,    disappoints    me, 

115. 
Forster,  Mr.,  on  Dickens,  353,  355, 

356  ;  his  life  of  Landor,  438,  509  ; 

portraits    prefixed   to,  439,   441  ; 

Landor  gives  him  all  his    works, 

447. 
Fortezza  da  Basso  at  Florence,  grand 

duke  at,  350;  in  Florentine  revolu- 
tion, 421. 
Fortniyhtly  Review,  480. 
"Fortunes  of  Nigel,"  33. 
Fouehe,  police  minister,  234,  236. 
Founder's  Commemoration,  99. 
Founder's  Obit,  99. 
"  Fountain  "  inn,  Canterbury,  at  the, 

241,  242. 
France,    central,    journey    through, 

320 ;  which  portion  most  intere.'^t- 

ing,  320. 
FraiK'lii,  book  by  G.  H.  Lewes,  read- 
ing, 483. 
Franchise,  the,  Whately  on,  143. 
Francis,  St.,  and  Pulszky,  434. 
Franz  Vater,  Austrian  emperor,  224, 

225. 
Franer^s  Magazine,  Mary  Mitford  on, 

496. 
French  hateil  at  Rome,  406. 
French  prisoners,  College  dole  to,  71. 
Frescobaldi  family  at  Florence,  475. 
Friday   receptions,  my  mother's,  in 

Florence,  338,  381;  my  mother's 

whist  parties,  490. 
Friends,  my  mother's,  in  youth  and 

age,  490. 
Fulham,  walk  to,  152. 
Fun,  my  mother's  love  of,  490. 

Gx-Rv.u.,  Dr.,  of  Winchester,  12,  67, 

87,  88,  89,  492. 
Gabell,  Miss,  12,  492. 
Gaffer  Williams,  77. 
"Gaffarel's  Curiosities,"  152. 
Galicia,  peasants  from,  22G. 
Galileo,  new  edition  of  work  of,  478  ; 

Milan  edition  of,  478. 
Gambling- tables    at   Lucca    Baths, 

365. 
Garcia,  P.,  in  1840,  315. 
Garibaldi,  and    Dickens,  359;    Col. 

Pcard's   judgment   of,  427,  428; 

my    remembrance    of    him,    428; 

visits  me  at  Ricoiboli,  429 ;    his 

personal  appearance,  429;  dispute 


INDEX. 


531 


with  him,  a,  430 ;  at  Palermo, 
431. 

Garrow,  Judge,  377. 

Garrow,  Mr.  Joseph,  376-378,  380, 
388,  389  ;  Laiulur's  letters  to,  481 ; 
his  musical  talent,  506 ;  a  very 
exacting  father,  515;  his  death, 
517,  518. 

Garrow,  Mrs.,  376,377,  380,  381. 

Garrow,  Theodosia,  377 ;  her  posi- 
tion in  her  family,  379 ;  her  fort- 
une and  pros[)ecis,  379;  her  per- 
sonal appearance,  382  ;  her  ances- 
tors, 38'2;  in  Rome,  387,  388 ;  her 
Church  opinions,  388 ;  as  an  in- 
mate, 388;  at  the  "Braddons," 
391  ;  her  appreciation  of  Mis.s 
Barrett,  392,  407;  and  Landor, 
442-445     See  Trollopc,  Theodosia. 

Gastronomy  and  L.  E.  L.,  163. 

Gedge,  Mr.i  243. 

Geiinaro,  Monte,  near  Rome,  77. 

Genoa,  fishing  near,  293  ;  La  Super- 
ba,  409. 

Geography,  early  studies  in,  5. 

George  Eliot.     iSce  Lewes,  Mrs. 

Germany,  life  in,  153;  journey  in, 
212;  South,  impression  of,  218; 
Lewescs  in,  482. 

Ghosts  of  memory,  391. 

Gianchetti  and  whitebait,  294. 

Gibbon,  Mrs..  42. 

Gibbon,  Kate,  42,  43. 

Gibson,  the  sculptor,  360 ;  Dickens 
on,  359.  360. 

Gig,  "  Virgil  "  lesson  in  the,  58  ;  es- 
cape in  the,  61. 

Giglio.Via  del,  at  Florence,  311. 

Gilchrist,  Dr.,  dinner  given  l)y,  315. 

Giotto's  tower  at  Florence,  342,  390; 
anecdote  concerning,  390  ;  <».  II. 
Lewes  <in,  478. 

Giusti,  the  poet,  and  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany,  348,  340,  367;  my  first 
wife's  translations  from,  507,  508. 

Gladstone,  his  age,  (Jeorge  Eliot  on, 
4H5;  wlitii  a  High  Tory,  494. 

"Glass  bi-ads  for  savages,"  r)l4. 

Glee,  going  to  ilinner  with,  189. 

Gloucester,  adventure  at,  59. 

Goethe,  227;  his  "(;retchcn,"  first 
performarici;  of,  227. 

Golden  Fleece,  in.-'liillatiou  of  knights, 
2:i6 

Guro  House,  442,  445. 


Gothard,  St.,  over  the,  Lewes's  jour- 
ney, 476. 

Gothic  architecture,  Mary  Mitford  on, 
498. 

Gout,  Sir  F.  Milman  on,  163. 

Grammar,  Latin,  my  introduction  to, 
3. 

Grand  Duchess  Florentini,  burial  of, 
410. 

Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  347-349  ; 
anecdote  of,  350;  exit  of,  from 
Tu.scany,  350,  423,  424. 

Grandison,  Sir  Charles,  readings  in, 
42. 

Grange,  La,  La  Fayette's  estate,  106. 

Granger,  Edmund,  30. 

Grant's  family,  178,  204,  390. 

(iranville.  Lord,  133,  336;  his  recep- 
tions in  Paris,  315. 

Grattan,  Mrs.,  500. 

Grattan,  T.  C,  162,  250,  255  ;  consul 
at  Boston,  500 ;  letters  from,  5U0- 
504  ;  his  message  to  me,  500 ; 
blank,  no  prize,  500;  prepares 
new  edition  of  "Highways  and 
Byeways,"  500;  writes  in -^\o>V/i 
American  Review,  500 ;  endeav- 
ors to  promote  peace  between  Eng- 
land and  America,  5(i0;  s])eaks 
of  his  seared  lieart,  501 ;  pessi- 
mism as  often  deceptive  as  opti- 
mism, 501  ;  not  a  fertile  writer,  501 ; 
his  advice  to  my  mother  as  a 
writer,  502 ;  visits  Washington, 
5n2;  doubts  respecting  his  con- 
duct as  con-<ul,  503  ;  writes  on  Ire- 
land,503  ;  i)roposes  various  travels, 
503 ;  resolves  to  give  up  punning, 
603  ;  his  repartees,  503,  5(>4. 

Graves,  Mi.ss,  at  Floreneo,  415. 

Graves,  price-cm-rent  of,  156. 

Griiv-goose  quill  work,  Grattan  on, 
501. 

"  Greek  Slave,"  Power's   statue  of, 

(Jrcen,  .Joseph  Henry,  208. 

tireen  tea  and  laudanum,  effects  of, 

490. 
Gregory  XVI.  a  Camaldolese,  457; 

beans  annually  sent  to,  460. 
(iresley  ni^»(tUiance,  13. 
(Jreys,  cousins  of  Mary  Mitford,  497. 
(Jrisi  in  l«4o,  ;{15. 
(iuard.  National,  in  Paris,  186. 
Guidi,  Ca.sn,  vi.-iils  to,  .'i92,  139. 


532 


INDEX. 


Guildhall,  6. 

Guizot,  190, 195,  196 ;  on  the  French 

clergy,  317. 
Gumbrell,  Dicky,  8-4. 
Gumbrell,  Jlotlier,  84. 
"Gush  "  and  Mary  Mitford,  499. 
Gyongyos  in  llungary,  election  for, 

436. 

Hackney  coaches,  20,  21. 

fladdon  Hall,  277. 

Hadley,  my  mother  settles  at,  207; 
life  at,  208  ;  in  the  garden  at,  247, 
248. 

Hahnemann's  favorite  pupil,  493. 

Haine,  Notre  Dame  de  la,  295. 

Ilaldon  Down,  27. 

llaliburton  (Sam  Slick),  250. 

Halifax,  503. 

Hall,  Alfred,  and  family  at  Florence, 
337. 

Hall,  Captain  Basil,  161,  162. 

Hall,  Mr.  Horace,  and  Mr.  Sloane,  337, 
338. 

Hall,  prefect  of,  at  Winchester,  74, 
77,  78. 

Hall,  Rev.  George,  176,  177. 

Haller,  Dr.,  of  Berlin,  485,  486 ;  on 
Lewes's  philosophic  work,  486. 

"  Halls  "  and  colleges  at  Oxford,  133. 

Hamilton,  Captain,  author  of  "  Cvi'il 
Thornton,"  283,284;  his  boat"  on 
lake,  283,  284. 

Hamilton,  Mr.,  minister  at  Florence, 
340. 

Hammond,  Mr.,  208. 

Hampstead,  6. 

Handwriting,  Mary  Mitford's,  494. 

Hare,  Landor's  friend,  447. 

Harmony,  New,  Miss  Wright's  prop- 
erty, 108. 

Harrison,  American  President,  600, 
602. 

Harrow,  my  father  moves  to,  43  ; 
farm  at,  43;  school,  48,  51,  64; 
masters,  50 ;  my  first  appearance 
at,  50, 53 ;  antagonisms  at,  62  ,  vic- 
arage of,  63  ;  scandal  in  parish 
church  of,  63  ;  extraordinary  ves- 
try meeting  at,  64  ;  my  parents 
quit,  105;  Weald  house  at,  158; 
farm  at,  105. 

Harrow  days,  old,  491. 

Hatred,  Our  Lady  of.  295. 

Haymarket,  the,  sixty  years  ago,  39 


Hebraist,  learned,  302. 

Heckfield,  Mary  Mitford  at,  498. 

Heckfield  vicarage,  9,  14  ;  verstis  Ju- 
lians, 44. 

IletMian  the  pugilist,  347. 

Heidelberg,  304. 

Heights,  Witley,  467 

Hennell,  Miss  Sara,  Mrs.  Lewes  to, 
461,472. 

Herbont,  Dr.,  175,  204. 

Heredity,  question  of,  243. 

Hereford,  Bishop  of,  08,  91,  92. 

Heretics,  persecution  of,  278. 

Hermolaus,  Barbarus,  478. 

Hertford  College,  147. 

Hertfordshire  squire,  n,  sixty  years 
ago,  44. 

Hervieu,  M.,  155,  211,  217,  218,  229, 
231 ,  his  portrait  of  my  mother, 
492. 

High  -  Church  opinions,  mv  sister's, 
388. 

Highgate,  G. 

"  Highways  and  Byeways,"  Grattan's, 
500 ;  new  edition  of,  500. 

Hill,  Frances,  in  "  Our  Village,"  499. 

Hill,  Herbert,  Kouthey's  nephew,  286. 

Hill,  Joscpli,  Cowper's  cousin,  499. 

Hill,  Thcodosia,  in  "Our  Village," 
499 

Hinds,  Mr.,  134,  135. 

"History  of  Florence,"  my,  G.  H. 
Lewes's  criticism  of,  481 

"History  of  riiilosophy,"  G  H. 
Lewes's,  482. 

Hobhouse,  Edward,  at  Florence,  415. 

"  Hoc  est  Corpus,^''  Blanco  White's 
anecdote  of,  144. 

Iloche,  General,  his  daughter,  anec- 
dote of,  314. 

Hodgson,  Mrs.  Archdeacon,  164. 

Hofwyl,  Leweses  at,  476. 

Molborn,  verse-making  in,  4. 

Holland,  society  of,  Grattan  on,  502. 

Holland,  Lord,  Minister  at  Florence, 
339;  anecdote  of,  341 ;  saved  my 
mother's  life,  489;  Lady,  339. 

Homilies,  passage  from,  149,  150. 

Homoeopathic  cure  of  erysipelas,  493. 

Hoopern  Bowers,  27,  28. 

Hopkins,  Damme,  98,  99. 

Household  \Voril\  my  contributions 
to,  357. 

Ilugel,  Baron,  492,  493. 

Hugo,  Victor,  192,  193. 


INDEX. 


533 


Hume,  Mr.,  the  "  Medium,"  260-267, 

270-272 ;  Dickens  ou,  360. 
Ilunior,  that  of    George  Eliot,  566; 

that  of  Lewes,  different,  466 ;  my 

mother's  sense  of,  490. 
Hungarian  gypsies,  226. 
Hungarian  politics,  Pulszky  on,  434, 

435 ;  elections,  434. 
Hungarians,  222 ;  Pulszky  proud  of 

the,  436. 
Huniingford,    Bishop    of    Hereford, 

89-92;  his  handwriting,  401. 
Hustings,  fall  of,  329. 
Hutchinson,  Rachel,  28. 

Ir.niESTER  to  Ilininstcr,  25. 

Ilfraconibe,  from,  to  Lynton,  61; 
visit  to,  330;  Royal  Clarence  Hotel 
at,  330. 

Impudence,  Irish,  notable  case  of, 
373. 

Indepcndenza,  Piazza  dell',  in  Flor- 
ence, 439. 

Index,  the  Roman  Catholic,  380. 

Indian  hand,  my  first  wife's,  506. 

Indian-s,  West,  at  Alhan  Hall,  134. 

Influenza  and  tragedy,  Mary  Mitford 
suffers  from,  498. 

Infra  di<j.,  or,  'in  for  a  dig  !  162. 

Ingliirami,  Marchese,  389. 

Innovations  at  Winchester,  92. 

Intentifms,  good,  impruiience  of  reg- 
istering them,  156,  157. 

Intimates,  my  mother's,  in  youth  and 
age,  491). 

Ireland,  Whatelv's  utterances  on, 
142,  143;  in  'l841,  328;  GratUin 
on,  503. 

Itchen  water-meads,  Winchester,  75. 

Jon,  Sergeant  Talfoiird's,  497. 

Irish  in  America,  Gruttan  on  tiiu, 
600. 

Italy,  my  mother's  book  on,  325  j 
takes  to  political  thinking,  398. 

jAconsoN.  Mr.,  14. H,  119. 

Jamaica,  l{i>liop  of,  49. 

James,  G.    P.    R.,  Landor's    friend, 

440. 
Jealousy,  professional,  at    Florence, 

489. 
Jrnne,  Dr.,  176-178,  'i04,  243,  240. 
Jcnne,  Mrs.,  216. 
Jews  at  Vienna,  224. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  of  Magdalin,  \?,1, 


Journey  in   West  of  England,  57 ; 

from   Vienna    to    England,    239, 

240. 
Joy,  Mr.,  of  Boston,  502. 
Joyce's  Inn,  dinner  at,  329. 
Judge  Story,  Grattan  on,  503. 
Jidians,  visits  to,  44. 

Katkr,  Captain,  253. 

Kensington  Gardens,  6. 

Kenyon,  Mr.,  391 ;  and  Landor,  444  ; 
his  poems,  Landor  on,  445;  Lan- 
dor on,  444 ;  and  Miss  Mitford, 
498. 

Kenyon,  Mr.  Edward,  and  Miss  Mit- 
foi-d,  498;  his  munificence,  498. 

Keppel  Street  davs,  2-4,  12,  13,  17- 
19,40;  old,  491. 

Key  of  the  birch  cupboard  and 
"  Mother  Mark,"  53. 

Killeries,  excursion  to,  328. 

King's  Head  Inn,  Dover,  detention 
at,  240. 

Kingstown,  landing  at,  328. 

Kirkup,  Seymour,  268-270;  and  Sig- 
nor  Bezzi,  442. 

Kiss  of  peace,  the  vicar's,  65 

"  L.\  Bkata,"  my  novel,  George  Eliot 
on,  476  ;  Lewes  on,  477. 

Lablache  in  1840,  314. 

"  Lady  "  for  wife,  used  by  Landor, 
443. 

La  Fayette,  General,  106. 

Lalfarge,  Ma'iame,  3118. 

Lal'ontainc,  M.,  2(i7,  268. 

Lamartine,  190;  cited,  310, 

Lamb,  Sir  F.,  230,  231. 

Lamenais,  Abli6  de,  194,  195. 

Landon,  L.  Iv,  163. 

Lanilor,  Walter  Savage,  438,-  at 
Siena,  399  ;  circumstances  under 
which  he  left  England,  438;  his 
character,  438  ;  personal  appear- 
ance, 439;  last  days  at  Florence, 
439;  anecdote  of,  4:^9;  his  deaf- 
ness, 439  ;  dro|)i)ed  his  aspirates, 
440;  threw  his  dinner  service  out 
of  wiiulow,  440;  his  vivacity  of 
manner,  440;  liis  objection  to 
Hcattering  iiis  ]ihotograpli,  441  ; 
htters  to  Mr.  (Jarrow,  4  12-447  ; 
offers  to  let  his  villa  at  Florence, 
413;  his  extravagant  exaggera- 
tions,444,445  n. ;  anger  respecting 


534 


INDEX. 


Lieutenantcy  of  Jlonmoiitli,  446  ; 
abuses  the  Wliijrs,  446,  447  ;  at  a 
breakfast  at.  .Miliiian's,  447  ;  and 
Mary  Mi t ford,  499. 

Land's'  End,  tlio,  296. 

Landseer,  Edwin.  355. 

Langdale,  Little,  Wordsworth's  lines 
on,  285. 

Language,  degradation  of,  34,  35. 

Lanleff,  Temple  of,  315, 

Larochefoueauld,  Duchesse  de,  188; 

lAiseia  Passare  extraordinary,  370. 

Laudanum  and  green  tea,  effects  of, 
490. 

La  Vernia,  421,  451  ;  ride  to,  460 ; 
foresdena,  etc.,  461  ;  night-lodg- 
ing at,  461. 

Law,  idea  of  supremacy  of,  at  Win- 
chester, 140. 

Lavard,  visit  to  Dickens,  359  ;  and 
(i.  P.  Marsh,  449, 

Leaf,  turning  over  a  new,  Grattan  on, 
500. 

Leatherhead,  sc-xton  of,  155. 

"Leave  out"  at  Winchester,  90. 

Lebanon,  ilount,  Shaking  Quaker 
establishment,  121. 

Lectures,  cla.s.sical,  Whately's  useless 
to  me,  136;  logic,  Whately's  wii 
at,  139. 

Lembach,  portrait  painter,  229. 

"Lenten  Journey,", my,  321. 

LeoXIIL,  219.  " 

Leopoldine  laws  at  Florence,  409. 

Le  Roi,  Madame,  anecdote  of,  314. 

Lesson-giving  in  London,  171, 172. 

Lessons  in  chapel,  extraordinarv,  97, 
98. 

Letters,  single  and  double,  38,  39 ; 
mv  first  wife's  in  the  Athencenm, 
508. 

Lewes,  G:  H.,  my  first  acquaintance 
with,  451 ;  a  delightful  compan- 
ion, 452  ;  his  incessant  care  for 
his  wife,  452-455;  his  anxiety 
about  Mr.s.  Lewes's  fatigue,  462  , 
his  fourth  visit  to  Italy,  463  ;  as  a 
raconteur,  466 ;  at  the  house  of 
the  American  minister,  465,  466  ; 
his  advice  to  me  about  my  novel, 
466 ;  happier  than  previously, 
468  ;  last  adieu  to  him  and  Mrs. 
Lewes,  470 ;  his  sayings  of  George 
P>liot's  person  and  constitution, 
471;     his    literary    influence    on 


George  Eliot,  472;  his  faith  in 
her  power.s,  472  ;  his  insistence 
on  her  superiority  to  him,  473  ; 
his  delight  in  talking  of  her,  473; 
letters  from  him  and  (ieorge 
Eliot,  474-487  ;  letter  criticising 
my  novel  "La  Beata,"  475,  476; 
his  remarks  on  Mrs.  Browning's 
death,  476  ;  visits  Malvern,  477 ; 
his  criticism  on  my  "  Marietta," 
479;  his  ill -health,  480;  Fort- 
niyhthj  lieview,  his  editing  of,  481  ; 
at  Tunbridge  Wells,  481 ;  his 
"  History  of  Philosophy,"  482  ;  in 
the  Black  Forest,  482  ;  at  a  pan- 
tomime, 482  ;  on  crossing  to  Cal- 
ais, 483 ;  on  my  corresponding 
with  a  London  paper,  484  ;  death 
of  his  son,  485  ;  no  biography  of, 
485 ;  his  special  advantages  in 
writing  on  philosophy,  486  ;  pho- 
togra])h  of  him,  487. 
Lewes,  Mrs.,  excursion  to  Camaldoli, 
451 ;  her  cheerfulness  under  fa- 
tigue, 451,  452;  her  sensitiveness 
to  all  matters  of  interest,  452,  455  ; 
passes  the  night  in  the  cow-house, 
458;  at  La  Yernia,  461,  462;  her 
fourth  visit  to  Italy,  463 ;  her  in- 
tellectual power,  463 ;  considera- 
tion for  others,  463 ;  as  a  com- 
panion, 404,  465;  her  Catholic 
tolerance,  464 ;  would  have  been 
an  admirable  confessor,  465;  not 
happy,  465 ;  subsequently  more 
so,  465  ;  her  sense  of  humor,  466; 
my  visit  to  her  at  Witley,  467  ;  her 
growth,  467,  468  ;  optimism  in  her 
case,  468;  her  articulation,  468; 
her  love  for  a  drinking-song,  468; 
her  improved  health,  468 ;  last 
adieu  to  her  and  Lewes,  470;  her 
personal  appearance,  470 ;  her 
liiieness  to  Savonarola,  471 ;  to 
Dante,  471  ;  her  voice,  471  ;  and 
mode  of  speaking,  471  ;  her  opin- 
ion of  Lewes's  scientific  attain- 
ments, 472 ;  Bohemianism  in 
Lewes  pleasant  to  her,  472 ;  let- 
ters fi'om  her  and  Lewes,  474- 
487;  questions  concerning  Flor- 
,  cntine  history,  letter  on,  474, 
475  ;  her  remarks  on  my  novel 
"  La  Beatii,"  476  ;  speaks  of  her 
interest  in   deathbeds,  477;    her 


IXDEX. 


535 


handwriting,  477  ;  on  letter-writ- 
ing, 478 ;  her  Saturday  musical 
evenings,  478 ;  her  poor  state  of 
health,  480 ;  at  Venice,  480 ;  dif- 
ficulties in  composing,  481 ;  in 
the  Black  Forest,  482 ;  wishes  to 
see  Arezzo  and  Perugia,  482;  at 
Naples,  483 ;  as  an  antagonist, 
484 ;  and  my  second  wife,  484 ; 
her  affection  for  Lewes's  son,  485  ; 
her  wishes  concerning  her  hus- 
band, 485 ;  after  her  husband's 
death,  485 ;  on  her  husband's 
photograph,  489. 

Lewes,  Charles,  487. 

Lit)crali?ni,  my  mother's,  490. 

Librarian  at  Tubingen,  218. 

"  Life  and  Mind,  Problems  of,"  G.  H. 
Lewes's  book  on,  485. 

Lilies,  scarlet,  American,  499. 

Lima,  river,  372. 

LiuLohrs  Inn,  2,  4,  32,  33. 

Lingui.-;tic  solecisms,  modern,  35. 

I^ipscomb,  Rev.  Mr.,  49. 

Lira,  Tuscan,  343. 

Liszt,  198,  199. 

Literarv  judgments  of  Paris  in  1834, 
190-192. 

Literature,  English,  biographies  in, 
485. 

Little  Marlboro  Street,  lodgings  in, 
172. 

Liverpool  and  Manchester  railroad, 
1.54,  155. 

Livery  servant,  3. 

Livingstone,  57. 

"  Loggia,"  Tuscan,  picture  of  after- 
noon in  a,  509. 

Lohnkutsdier,  German,  212. 

Loml)ar>l  noljles,  475. 

Loiiibardy  under  the  Austrians,  405. 

London,  changes  in,  2<\  30,  31. 

London  Quarterly  on  G.  IL  Lewes, 
485. 

Longfellow  and  Sir  G.  Musgrave, 
301  n. 

Longworth,  Mr.,  121,  122. 

Lorruiiip,  ramble  in,  32:{. 

Lottery,  Italian,  scheme  of,  427. 

Loui.s  Philippe,  183.  IHti,  I'.M,  194; 
lii.><tory  of  reign  of,  31)7;  his  hob- 
by, 308;  op<'ns  French  Chamber."*, 
iJ()9,  312;  his  grief  at  d.-nth  of 
Dtic  d'OrieaiiM,  312  ;  anecdf)te  of, 
313;  his  wealth,  318;  hitt  debt.s, 


318  ;  his  reign,  character  of, 
324. 

Louis  XL,  194. 

Lowell,  his  "  Biglow  Papers,"  read 
bv  iiim,  470. 

Lowth,  Dr.,  96. 

L.  S.  D.,  origin  of  our,  343. 

Lucca  Baths,  364 ;  journey  thither 
from  Florence,  364 ;  English 
Church  at,  368;  tragedy  at,  372, 
373  ;  La  Industriona,  409. 

Lucca,  Duke  of,  306 ;  at  the  Baths, 
367 ;  his  Protestantizing  tenden- 
cies, 367 ;  his  English  chamber- 
lains, 371;  opposed  to  duelling, 
872 ;  by  his  chamberlain's  dying- 
bed,  375. 

Lucca,  Scientific  Congress  at,  383. 

Lucchesi,  character  of,  365. 

Lucerne,  visit  to  the  Garrows  at,  383. 

"  Luck  of  Eiienhall,"  300,  301. 

"  Lung'  Arno,"  at  Florence,  406. 

Luscombe,  Bishop,  his  preaching, 
316;  anecdote  of,  316,  317. 

"Lydia  Languish"  played  by  Ma- 
dame di  Parcieu,  416. 

Lynmouth  as  it  was,  61. 

Lynton  sixty  years  ago,  61. 

Lyon,  John,  48,  51,  54. 

Macaitlat,  Lander  on,  447. 

Macbride.  Dr.,  147,  148. 

" Macchiavelli,  Life  of,"  Villari's,  -1 1 8. 

"Macchie"  in  Italian  landscape,  469. 

Mackinto.sh,  Mrs.,  202 ;  Margaret, 
202,  203. 

Macleod,  Col.,  at  Penrith,  303. 

Macready,  39;  and  Mary  Milford, 
499;  and  <J.  II.  Lewe.s,  474;  plays 
"  Ion  "  for  his  benefit,  497. 

M 'Queen,  Col.  Potter,  335. 

Madiai,  tiie  story  of  the,  3-18,  409. 

Magazines,  writing  in,  Mary  Mitford 
on,  490. 

Magdalen  College,  33,  137. 

.Magdalen  Hall,  147;  society  at,  118; 
anecdotes  of,  1 18. 

Magisterial  duties,  47. 

.Magnetism,  animal,  253,  254  ;  expe- 
riences of,  with  Baron  Dupntet, 
2f)3,  2ft  I  ;  with  Dr.  Klliotson,  255- 
25«;  willi  Daniel  Hume,  26i)-26f,; 

with   Mrs.  (J ,  2t'.fi,  2ti7 ;   with 

Dr.  Willis,  267;  with  M.  I.afon- 
tuine,   267,   268 ;    with    Seymour 


536 


INDEX 


Kirkiip,  268,  269;  with  my  wife 
and  sistiT-iii-law,  260  ;  with  Alex- 
is, 271,  272;  witli  performer  with 
slates  ami  pencils,  272 ;  perform- 
ances of  llessrs.  Maskelyne  and 
Cooke,  270,  271 ;  general  impres- 
sion left  on  ray  mind,  274. 

Mahomet,  Landor  on,  447. 

Mail  coaches,  23,  24 ;  raeinj;  the, 
150;  from  Canterbury  to  London, 
242. 

Malcontent!,  Yia  dei,  Florence,  337. 

Malibran,  225. 

Malvern,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lewes's  visit, 
478. 

Mancel.M.,  210,  211. 

Manchester,  marriac^es  at,  155. 

Manciple  and  bishop,  anecdote  of, 
99. 

Manelli  family  at  Florence,  475. 

Mannluim,  304. 

Manual  for  Confessors,  357. 

"Marietta,"  my  novel,  criticised  by 
Lewes,  479. 

Mario,  Alberto,  428. 

Mario,  Jessie  White,  428,  430. 

Marriage,  my  first, opposition  to,  379; 
imprudence  of,  379;  performed 
in  Florence,  389. 

Marriflge  service  extraordinary,  155. 

Mars,  Madame,  in  "  Lcs  Dehors 
Trompeurs,"  314. 

Marsellaise,  in  1840,  309 

Marsh,  G.  P.,  232 ;  American  minis- 
ter to  Italy,  448;  dean  of  the 
diplomatic  body,  448 ;  his  work, 
"Man  in  Nature,"  448;  letter 
from  him,  440;  difliculty  with  the 
Italian  ministry,  449,  450;  his 
death,  450;  and  George  Eliot, 465  ; 
Mrs.  Marsh,  450 ;  and  George  Eliot, 
405  ;  at  Rome,  467. 

Maitincau,  Miss,  her  American  book, 
499. 

Maskelyne  and  Cooke,  Messrs.,  270, 
271. 

"  Ma.son,  George,"  Mary  Mitford  in- 
quires about,  495. 

Mason,  .Mr.,  243,  245. 

Massaia,  Cardinal,  219. 

Massy,  Dawson,  446. 

Master  of  Foxhounds,  Irish,  328. 

Mathias,  Mr.,  252. 

Matriculation,  my,  132. 

Matiingley,  near  Ueckfield,  13. 


Mazzinists,  Col.  Peard  on,  426. 
Medical  practice  and  whist,  489. 
"  Medici,  Catherine  de.  Girlhood  of," 

my  book  on,  417. 
Medici,  General,  his  departure  from 

Genoa,  427. 
Mediterranean,  the,  455. 
Meetkerke,  Adolplius,   43,   44,    46; 

Mrs.,  44,  45,  47  ;  Mrs.  Anne,  44. 
Melanie,  Princess    Melternich,  492; 

letter    from,  492 ;    exchange    of 

portraits,  492. 
Melbourne,  Lord,  his  family,  Landor 

on,  446. 
Mel  fort,  Count,  203. 
Melmish,  Miss  Emma,  255,  256. 
Member  of  Congress,  503. 
"  Memoires  d'Outretombe,"  Chauteau- 

briand's,  188;  readings  from,  189. 
"Memories,  Palace  of,"  verses  by  my 

first  wife,  512. 
Menage  and  Menagerie,  339. 
"Mercato  in,"  Italian  phrase,  475. 
Merim6e,  M.,  315. 
Messenger,  King's,  276. 
Mettcrnicli,  and  Bismarck  contrasted, 

228,  229  ;  personal  appearance  of, 

229,  230  ;  his  habit  at  dinner,  232; 
his  account  of  his  interviews  with 
Napoleon, 233 ;  hisstoryof  Fouche, 
234-236;  Princess,  231 ;  influence 
of,  on  my  mother,  492 ;  Princess, 
influence  of,  492. 

Melz,  212. 

Mezzeria  system  in  Tuscany,  404. 

Michael  Angelo,  his  figure  represent- 
ing the  Apennine,  420. 

"  Micliael  Armstrong,"  novel  by  my 
motlier,  336. 

Miildle  Temple,  2. 

Middleton,  Captain,  168. 

.Mignaty,  Signor,  479. 

Mignatv,  Signora,  479. 

Mignct,"  M.,  190,  319. 

Milan,  "  Untori,"  47 ;  Scientific  Con- 
gress at,  383. 

Milk  not  used  by  Tuscans,  454. 

Mills,  Rev.  Mr.,  50. 

Milman,  163-105;  Landor  break- 
fasts w  ith,  447  ;  Landor's  criti- 
cism on,  447  ;  quits  iucumbeucj 
at  Reading,  497. 

Milman,  Lady,  103. 

Mihiian,  Sir  Francis,  103. 

Milman,  Sir  William,  164. 


INDEX. 


537 


Mil  toil,  Henry,  151. 

Milton,  Mr5.,"l60. 

Milton,  Rev.  William,  9,  13, 44. 

Minerva  Hotel,  Rome,  Leweses  at, 
483. 

Misericordia,  the  Florentine,  412 ; 
origin  of,  412;  dress  of,  413; 
members  of,  413;  proceedings  of, 
413;  anecdotes  of,  413,414;  Ro- 
man, 414. 

Mitford,  Mary,  494 ;  her  personal  ap- 
pearance, 494  ;  letters  from,  495- 
499 ;  her  handwritin<r,  494 ;  an 
aristocratic  Whig,  495  ;  remarks 
on  Owen  of  Lanark,  495 ;  and 
Captain  Polhill,  495 ;  her  opera, 
495,  496 ;  on  writing  in  maga- 
zines, 496 ;  her  hopes  for  her 
tragedy,  496 ;  her  hatred  of  puiT- 
ery,  496 ;  anxious  to  go  to  London 
for  the  performance  of  Talfourd's 
"Ion,"  497;  necessity  for  travelling 
with  a  maid,  497 ;  her  father,  497; 
her  cousins,  497;  writes  a  novel 
for  Saunders  &  Ottley,  497 ;  hei 
belief  in  sympathies,  498;  opin- 
ions on  Au.stria,  498;  admiration 
for  Gothic  aicliitecture,  498  ;  pur- 
poses a  novel  on  Reading  Abbey, 
498 ;  her  "  Country  Stories,"  498  ; 
her  admiration  for  Miss  Barrett, 
498;  her  garden,  499  ;  sends  wild 
flowei-s  to  the  St'dgwicks,  499; 
Carey,  translator  of  Dante,  visits 
her,  499 ;  her  "  gush,"  499. 

Modena,  frontier  line  between  it  and 
Lufca,  372;  political  feeling  at, 
398 ;  imder  the  Este  dukos,  405. 

"Modern  Aiiti(|ues"  in  "Uur  Vil- 
lage." 409. 

Mohl,  Jules,  at  Madame  Rtjcamicr's, 
317;  anecdote  told  by,  318;  his 
great  work,  318  ;  character  of,  318, 
319;  Madam,  life  of,  by  K.U'Meura, 
319;  note  from,  319.' 

Mohl,  M.,  198. 

Moli^rc,  160. 

Monasleries,  sites  of,  456. 

Monday  Popular  Concerts,  at  the,  471. 

Monmotith,  Deputy  Lieutcnantcv  of, 
416. 

Montali'mbcrt,  remarks  of  Dickens 
on,  358. 

Mont   Cenis,  cros-fing  in   February, 
325. 
23* 


Monthlies,  writing  in,  Mary  Mitford 
on,  496. 

Montmorenci,  picnic  at,  199,  200. 

Moore,  Thomas,  Landor  on,  447. 

Moses,  Landor  on,  447. 

Mountain,  Mrs.,  25. 

Mountains,  last  look  on  the,  505. 

Mouse-digging  at  Winchester,  76. 

Movement  of  mind  towards  conserv- 
atism, 494. 

Mo  watt,  Mrs.,  416. 

Mozzi  family  at  Florence,  475. 

.Mudie,  Mr.,  159. 

Mulgrave,  Lady,  446. 

Municipalities,  rivalry  between,  385. 

Municipality,  Florentine,  place  a  tab- 
let to  the  memory  of  my  first  wife, 
516. 

Murch,  Captain,  176,  177. 

Murder  at  Florence,  anecdote  of  a, 
407. 

Murder,  singular  method  of,  467. 

Mnrrav,  John,  of  Albemarle  Street, 
289.' 

Museum,  British,  George  Eliot  read- 
ing at,  479. 

Museum,  National,  at  Pesth,  434. 

Musgrave,  Sir  George,  298  ;  lady,  299 ; 
and  the  Holy  Well,  300 ;  and'  Long- 
fellow, 301  "71. ;  walks  with,  302. 

Musgraves  of  Edenhall,  298. 

Music  never  taught,  1U4. 

Mutton  at  Winchester,  71,  72;  loin 
of,  anecdote  of  a,  151  ;  no  more 
good,  303. 

Naplks,  pocket-picking,  at,  10 ;  king 
of,  13  ;  Scientific  Congress  at,  364  ; 
under  the  Bourbons,  405 ;  com- 
pared with  Tor(|uay,  413  ;  the 
Leweses  at,  483  ;  George  Eliot  on 
quarters  at,  483. 

Napoleon,  224,  236. 

Napoleon,  Louis,  Dickens  on,  360; 
his  Italian  [lolicy,  Mrs.  Browning 
on,  397  ;  W.  S.  Landor  writes  on, 
399. 

Narrow  escape,  mv,  in  tvphus  fever, 
55. 

Nashoba,  Miss  Wright's  property  at, 
1(17. 

Ncmiiurs,  Due  ile,  anecdote  of,  307; 
his  grief  for  his  brother's  death, 
312. 

Nerli  family  at  Florence,  175. 


538 


INDEX. 


"  Netto  di  specchio,"  query  of  George 
Eliot  icspectinr;  the  jiliiase,  474. 

Neuillv,  body  of  Due  d'Orleans  Iving 
at,  311. 

New  College,  13;  election  to,  from 
Winchester,  67 ;  privilege  now 
abandoned,  133. 

New  York,  first  impre.'^sions  of,  115. 

Niagara,  129,  130,  503. 

Niccolini,  the  pout,  my  first  wife's 
translations  from,  507  ;  in  his  old 
age,  507 ;  a  disappointed  man, 
507. 

Nicholson,  Dr.,  of  Penrith,  301-303 ; 
walks  wiih,  302. 

Nicholson,  Dr.  Wni.,  of  Penrith,  341, 
342. 

Nieufort,  gig  monstre,  169. 

Nihilist,  opinions  of  a,  433  ;  appear- 
ance of  a,  433. 

Noailles,  Duchesse  de,  188. 

Noblfc,  name  of  Landor's  grandmoth- 
er, 443. 

"No  innovation,"  91. 

Normandy,  tour  in,  209. 

North  American  Jieview,  Grattan 
■writes  in,  501. 

Northampton,  Lord,  447. 

"  Northern  Cobbler,"  the,  read  by 
Tennyson,  469. 

Northernhay,  at  Exeter,  330. 

Northwick,  Lord,  43,  53, 63, 105, 163. 

Nott,  Dr.,  10,  11,160,  230. 

Novels,  my,  419,420. 

Novel-writing,  Mary  Mitford  on,  496. 

Nuiiziatina,  Via,  in  Florence,  439. 

Nurse  and  child,  picture  of,  510. 

Nymzevitch,  e.x-chancellor  of  Poland, 
anecdote  of,  316. 

Oa.stlkr,  Mr.,  282,  283. 

Oath,  College,  at  SVinchester,  90. 

Obedience,  anecdote  of,  42. 

Oberland,  the,  482. 

O'Connell's  health  drank  at  Boston, 

503. 
Octroi  of  London,  322. 
0<iium,  theatricals  at,  160. 
Officer,  Austrian    and  Tuscan   mob, 

anecdote  of,  406,  407. 
Officei'fl  of  prefects  at  Winchester, 

72-75,  87. 
Ogle,  Dean,  84. 

Ogles,  cousins  of  Mary  Mitford,  497. 
Okey,  two  sisters,  257-260. 


Old  school,  practitioner  of  the,  489. 
Olnoy,  Cowper's  residence  at,  Mary 

Mitford  on,  499. 
Olympus  for  forgotten  authors,  478. 
O'Mcara,  Miss  K.,  on  Julius   Mohl, 

319. 
Opera,  Mary  Mitford's,  495. 
Optimism  in  George  Eliot,  468. 
Oratorio,  Dr.  Nott  at  an,  160. 
Ordinations  bv  Bishop  of  Hereford, 

91. 
Oriel    College,  Whately  popular  at, 

136. 
Orleans,  Duke  of,  3 1 1 ;  his  death,  3 1 1 ; 

grief  of  royal  family  for,  312  ;  an- 
ecdote of,  313. 
Orlev  Farm,  my  brother  Anthonv's, 

163. 
Ostend,  304 ;    society  at,  anecdotes 

of,   176;   pleasant  days  at,  202; 

tragedy  at,  202,  203  ;    society  at, 

203. 
Osteria,  near  Lucca  Baths,  scene  at, 

375. 
"  Our  Village,"  last  volume  of,  495. 
Ovington,  12. 
Owen,  Dale,  107. 
Owen,  of  Lanark,  107,  495. 
Oxford  road,  22  ;  street,  22. 
O.xford,  my  life  at,  150, 152  ;  general 

habits  at,  150. 
Oyster-soup,  anecdote,  209. 

Packing  and  Sitz  baths,  478. 
Paddington,    Bishop    Luscombe    at, 

316. 
"Padre  forestieraio "  at  Camaldoli, 

456,  457;   plans  for  his  holidav, 

458. 
Padua  "la  dotta,"  409. 
Paige,  Mr.,  of   Boston,  Grattan   on, 

502. 
Paige,  Mrs.,  502,  503. 
"  Palace  of  Memories,"  verses  by  my 

first  wife,  512. 
Pan,  (rod,  Mrs.  Browning's  poem  on, 

394  ;  morality  of,  396. 
Pantomime,  15  ;   Lewcs  at  a,  482. 
Pajjal  Legion,  the,  449. 
Parreque  and  Quohpie  Bourbon,  184. 
Parcieu,  Madame  de,  as  "  Lydia  Lan- 
guish," 416. 
Paris,  first  visit  to,  182 ;  changes  in, 

182,  183;    second  visit   to,  304; 

residence  at,  323  ;    lodgings,  cost 


INDEX. 


639 


of,  324;  society  in  1840,  324;  as 
a  permanent  residence,  331. 

"  Paris  and  the  Parisians,"  my  moth- 
er's book,  Mary  Mitford  on,  497. 

Parish  church  sixty  years  ago,  45, 
46. 

Parma,  Duke  of,  his  death,  367. 

Parma,  political  feeling  at,  398. 

Parodies  and  jibes  ridiculing  the  Re- 
publicans, 185. 

Partington,  Miss,  13. 

Partington,  Mr.,  my  uncle,  303. 

Pasolini,  Count  and  Countess,  467. 

Passenger  ship,  burning  of,  144. 

Passengei's  in  steerage,  1U>. 

Passerini,  Palazzo,  at  P'lorence,  332. 

Patrick's  Dav,  Saint,  Grattaii  on, 
503. 

"Paul  the  Pope  and  Paul  the  Friar," 
my  bo(jk  on,  417. 

Paved  roads  in  France,  181. 

Paynter,  Fred,  446. 

Peard,  Colonel,  425  ;  letters  from, 
426,  427. 

Pedestrianism,  my,  151, 152,  167  ;  in 
Wales,  156. 

Pelago  in  the  Val  d'Arno,  453  ;  An- 
tonio da,  453,  454,  460. 

Penini,  Browning's  son,  at  Siena, 
399  ;  anecdote  of,  399. 

Pcnna  de  la  Vernia,  460 ;  origin  of 
word,  460  ;  appearance  of,  460. 

Penrith,  at,  298-300;  my  sister's 
confinement  at,  325 ;  liouse  at, 
327. 

Pepe,  General  Fiorcstano,  12. 

Pepe,  General  Guglielmo,  12;  liis 
marriage,  315;  my  mother's  inti- 
macy with,  491. 

Pergola  Theatre  at  Florence,  prices 
at,  314  ;  haliits  anil  manners  at, 
344  ;  crush  room  at,  344. 

Pei"secution  of  heietics,  278. 

Persian!  in  1840,  314,  315. 

Personal  appearance,  mv,  in  voutli, 
15,  16. 

Per.-^onal  suprrintendencc,  little  at 
Winchrstcr,  84,  85. 

Perugia,  George  Eliot  wishes  to  see, 
482;  at,  483. 

Pestii,  musi-um  at,  434  ;  ladies  of, 
435  ;  university,  4:16  ;  museum, 
437. 

"  Pliilo.sophy,  History  of,"  LcwcaV, 
482. 


[  Phil  potts,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  Landor 
I      on,  444 ;  anecdote  of,  444. 

Phlebotomy  versus  port  wine,  489 ; 
veisus  whist,  489. 

Photograph,  Landor's,  441. 

Physician,  Princess  Metternich's, 
493. 

Piastre,  Landor  fined  one,  439. 

Piazza  del  Duomo  at  Florence,  cafe 
ill,  407. 

Piazza  dell'  Independenza  at  Flor- 
ence, 421. 

"  Piazza  in,"  Italian  phrase,  475. 

Picardy,  ramble  in,  323. 

Piccadilly,  4,  5. 

Picnic  at  Montmorenci,  199,  200. 

Picnics  at  Florence,  420. 

Pidding,  confectioner,  2. 

Pigott,  Edward,  and  George  Eliot, 
480. 

Pindar,  Peter,  27. 

Pinner,  Lady  Milman's  house  at, 
163. 

Pisa,  Congress  at,  383 ;  region  be- 
tween it  and  the  sea,  455. 

Pistoja,  mountains  in  the,  508. 

Pitti  Palace,  presentations,  anecdote 
of,  339  ;  vers)(s  Vatican,  340 ;  balls 
at,  345  ;  suppers  at,  345 ;  grand 
duke  at,  347  ;  duchess  at,  347  ; 
dowager  diicliess  at,  347 ;  the,  at 
Florence,  421. 

Pittsburgh,  squalor  of,  115. 

Pius  IX.,  anecdote  of,  313,  314 ;  line 
on,  514. 

Place  Vendome,  390. 

Plantation  Bitters,  G.  H.  Lewes  rec- 
ommends, 483. 

Pleintling,  on  the  Danube,  adventure 
at,  216,  217. 

Plinlimmon  pedestrianism,  156. 

Plot's  "Oxfordshire,"  152. 

Plowden,  Mi.,  at  tlie  batiis  of  Lucca, 
371 ;  his  duel  with  the  duke's 
chamberlain,  372,  373. 

Plunkett,  Mr.,  Minister  at  Florence, 
389. 

Plymouth,  no  tobacconist  in,  153. 

Poem  by  Theodosia  Trollo|)e,  509- 
613. 

PoiniiT,  French,  anecdote  of,  335. 

Polhill,  Captain,  and  Marv  Mitford, 
495. 

Police  at  Florence  under  the  grand 
duke,  407. 


540 


INDEX. 


rulitical  opinion,  Parisian,  in  18I(\ 
309. 

Politic.^,  a/  fresco,  183;  at  Paris  in 
1834,  183,  184;  street,  in  Pari-s 
308;  an  affair  of  tlie  heart,  4'.)1. 

Ponte  at  baths  of  Lvicca,  3(54. 

Ponte  Vecchio  at  Florence  in  dan- 
ger, 342 ;  the,  406. 

Pontifical  government,  my  first  wife's 
liatred  of,  514. 

Populace,  Florentine,  anecdote  of, 
406,  407  ;  violence  of,  198, 408. 

"Pop'  Santa  Maria,"  in  Florence,400. 

Port  wine  versus  phlebotomy,  489. 

Portugal,  destruction  of. monasteries 
in,  Mary  Mitford  on,  498. 

Postman,  two-peiiiiy,  38. 

Postmark,  singular  error  in,  481. 

Post-office,  at  the,  22. 

Potatoes,  cost  of,  323. 

Poulter,  Rev.  E.,  104. 

Power,  l[iss.  Lady  Blessingtou's 
niece,  513. 

Power,  lost  in  the  President,  500. 

Powers,  Hiram,  122,  123. 

Practitioner,  countrj-,  sixty  years  ago, 
55. 

Prato  Tecchio,  town  in  the  Apen- 
nines, 454  ;  osteria  at,  445. 

Prat<;Iino,  picnics  at,  420  ;  Medician 
villa,  420  ;  view  from,  420. 

Prayer,  family,  sixty  years  ago,  45. 

Prefects,  authority  of,  at  Winchester, 
87. 

Prefects'  table  at  Winchester,  73. 

Premature  burial,  fear  of,  518. 

Prescott,  the  historian,  Grattan  on, 
503. 

"President,"  the,  a  fatal  title,  500. 

Prester  John,  7. 

Pretender,  Young,  Mary  Mitford's 
storv  of  the,  498. 

Price,  Dr.,  124. 

Price,  Mrs.,  124,  125. 

Priest,  rescuing  the,  329 ;  burial  of, 
in  Florence  Cathedral,  410. 

Priorv,  the,  Mrs.  Lewes  at,  485. 

"  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,"  G.  U. 
Lcwcs's  book  on,  485. 

Proby,  Mrs.,  as  "  Mrs.  Malaprop," 
416. 

Proctor,  Mr.,  hid  poetry,  Mary  Mit- 
ford on,  498. 

Professional  etiquette  sixty  years 
ago,  38. 


Proletaire,  French,  490. 

Promise,  my,  to  my  mother,  518. 

Pronunciation,  changes  in,  34. 

Propaganda,  Roman,  visit  at,  219. 

Protestant  cemetery  at  Florence, 
517,519. 

Provence,  Rue  de,  at  Paris,  182. 

Provincialism,  affected,  299;  Tuscan, 
418,419. 

"  P.sychology,  Study  of,"  Lewes's 
book  on  the,  485. 

Puffery,  Mary  Slitford  on,  496. 

Pulszky,  Franz,  432 ;  his  talk,  432, 
433;  his  villa  at  Florence,  433; 
letters  from,  433-43G  ;  our  tobacco 
parliament,  433;  and  Deak,  434  ; 
and  Baron  Eotvos,  434;  on  Hun- 
garian politics,  435  ;  his  children, 
435;  at  Vienna,  435;  his  multi- 
farious occupations,  436  ;  visit  to, 
at  Pesth,  437. 

Pulszky,  Madame,  433. 

Punning,  Grattan  abandons,  503, 

Purley,  Diversions  of,  152. 

"  Puseyite,"  my  sister  a,  388. 

QaADuupi.E  Alliance,  the,  308. 
Quakcis,  Shaking,  visit  to,  118-121. 
Quarterly,  Loivlon,  on  G.  H.  Lewes, 

485. 
Quattro  Fontane,  Via  della,  387. 
Quincy  Adatns,  .John,  603. 
Queen  of  the  Adriatic,  monograph 

on,  384. 
Queen's  health  not  drunk  at  Boston, 

503. 
Queen,  Briliah,  the,  steamship,  500. 
Queen  of  the  Baths,  Lucca,  368. 
Queen,   the,   should   be    pope,    says 

Lan<lor,  447. 
Quicksilver  mail,  23,  25. 
(^uirinal,  anecdote  of  dinner  at,  232. 
Quotations,  Landor  on,  442. 

Rachel,  Mademoiselle,  in  "Cinna," 
3 14;  her  specialties,  314;  in  "Marie 
Stuart,"  314  ;  in  "  Adrienne,"  314. 

Raglan  Castle,  59,  60. 

Railway,  new,  Liverpool  to  Man- 
chester, 154. 

Railways,  social  effect  of,  288;  the 
Leweses  wish  to  avoid,  482. 

Ratcliffe,  Mrs.,  60,  277;  anecdote 
of,  4. 

Rations  at  Winchester,  71. 


INDEX. 


541 


Ratisbon,  213,  214. 

Raiisbonne,  M.,  his  conversion,  312. 

Ravenna,  scene  of  a  novel  of  mine, 
467. 

Reading  Abbey,  Mary  Mitford's  proj- 
ect concerning,  498. 

Reading,  early  lessons,  16. 

Heading,  visits  to,  494. 

Rejaniier,  Madame,  188,  189,  19C, 
197;  talk  in  her  salon,  317;  and 
Lady  Bulwer,  335. 

Red  Lion  Square,  20. 

Refinement,  its  connection  with 
wealth,  Mary  Mitford  on,  495. 

Refugees,  [)<>litical,  in  Florence,  340. 

Regicides,  would-be,  490. 

Religion  in  France  in  1840,  317. 

Religious  education,  9;  at  Win- 
chester, 95,  96 ;  indififerentism  at 
Cincinnati,  124. 

Remedv  ring  at  Winchester,  77. 

Rennel'l,  Duan,  91,  99,  lOo, 

Repartee,  Grattan  takes  to,  503. 

Republicans,  Parisian,  in  1834,  184, 
185;  feared,  185. 

Rettich,  Madame,  226. 

Return  to  Englami  from  America,  130. 

Review,  Forlnightlij,  481  ;  Xorth 
American,  Grattan  writes  in,  501. 

Revolution  at  Florence,  350,  421 ; 
entirely  bloodless,  422 ;  orders  to 
fire  on  the  city  in  the,  423. 

Rialto,  on  the,  334. 

Richelieu,  Due  de,  anecdote  of,  316. 

Richie,  Mrs.,  417. 

Ricorboli,  niv  villa  at,  463,  465,  467, 
484. 

Ri.lding,  Mr.,  88,  89. 

"  Rieiizi,"  Mary  Mitford's,  498. 

Ristori,  Madame,  in  "  Mirra,"  314. 

"  Kivals,  The,"  acted  at  Floreiice,416. 

Riviera,  the.  Whitebait  on,  294. 

"  Ri/pah."  reail  bv  TennVNon,  469. 

"  Road  to  Rum,  the,"  Arthur  Vun- 
sittart  in,  415. 

"  Kolja  usata."  370. 

Roljbins,  P'.uglish  clergjman  at  Flor- 
ence, 389. 

Robbin.x,  Mr.,  104. 

Roberts,  ('n|)tain  of  tiio  I'ruiiilint, 500. 

Rock.s,  Vall.-v  of,  61. 

Roil,  Mark  Di  ury  and  the,  52,  63  ; 
the  Winchrster,  79. 

Rogers*.  Landor  on,  442;  at  Milman's 
breakfast,  447- 


Bole,  Liberal,  profession  of,  490. 
Romagna  under  the  pope,  405. 
Romagnoli,  the,  398. 
Rome  as  a  residence,  331 ;  takes  no 

part  in  scientific  congresses,  385  ; 

winter  in,  387. 
Rome  "  la  Eterna,"  409. 
"  Romola,"  George  Eliot's,  faults  of, 

462;  merits  of,  463. 
Romuald,  Saint,  456. 
Rossi  family  at  I'lorence,  475. 
Rot  is  volveniibius,  14. 
Rousseau,  396. 

Route  through  Gt;rmanv,  219. 
Kul)ini  in  1840,  314. 
Rule  and  example,  466. 
Hussell  Square,  2. 
Russells,  cousins   of  Mary  Mitford, 

497. 
Rymcr,  Mr.,  261. 

Sabhath    observance,  Whatelv    on, 

139. 
SaiTron  Hill,  expedition  to,  7,  8. 
Sagro  Eremo,  the,  at  Camaldoli,  458  ; 

ride  up  to,  458;  rule  there,  459; 

inmates  of,  460. 
Saint  Catherine's  Ilill,  Winchester, 

74,  75. 
Saint  Francis,  sisters  of  the  Order, 

461. 
Saint  James's  Park,  6. 
Saint  Martin's-le-Grand,  22. 
Stiint  Martin's   Lane,  pilgrimage  to, 

50. 
Saint  Patrick's  Day,  Grattan  on,  503. 
Saint  Stephen's  at  Vienna,  catacombs 

under,  237. 
Saiiita  Maria  Maggiorein  Rome,  387. 
Sainte-Heuve,  cited,  318. 
Sali.sbiuT,  14. 
Sams  or  Sands  ?  Miss  Mitford  asks, 

495. 
Sanctuaries,  Tuscan,  421. 
San  Carlo  Theatre  at  Naples,  Georgo 

Eliot  at,  4H3. 
San  (Jallo  gale  at  Florence,  423. 
San  Niccolo  gate  at  Florence,  463. 
Sand,  Georg.'.s,  190,  194,  195. 
Sanscrit  dictionary,  if  wanted,  514. 
Sardine  (ishing,  293. 
Satiiriliii/   Iifvirw,  George   Eliot  on, 

477,  47'.». 
Sanmlcrs  A;  Ottlcy  publisli  novel  for 

Mary  Mitford,  4'.t7. 


542 


INDEX. 


Saunders,  butler  at  Pinner,  164. 
Savonarola,  in  George  Eliot's  "Ro- 

mola,"  463  ;  likeness  of  George 

Eliot  to,  471. 
Savoy,  tour  in,  332. 
Saws,  Tuscan,  for  children,  511. 
Sayers,  the  pugilist,  347. 
Schiller,  217. 
School,   public,  what  constitutes  a, 

51. 
Schools  versus  colleges,  Whatelv  on, 

139. 
Schwab,  Gustav,  218. 
Sciatica,  attack  of,  486. 
Scientific  congresses,  Italian,  383. 
Scott,  Sir  W.,  60,  154. 
Scourging,  practice  and  method  of, 

at  Winchester,  80,  81. 
Scrivelsby  Manor,  346. 
Seal,  old,  Landor  loses  his,  443. 
Sedgwick,  Miss,   Mary   Mitford    on, 

495 ,  Theodore,  asks  for  English 

wild  flowers,  499. 
Self-knowledge,    disadvantages     of, 

125. 
Segni,  the  historian,  418. 
Seniority  in  college  at  Winchester, 

86. 
Serchio,  river,  372 ;  upper  valley  of, 

372. 
Sermon  by  Bi.shop  of  London,  152. 
Sermons  at  the  cathedral,  Winches- 
ter, 99, 100. 
Servite    monastery    on    the    Apen- 
nines, 420. 
Sestri    di    Ponente,   fishery  at,  293, 

294  ;  wliitebait  at,  294. 
Severn,  banks  of,  visited,  156. 
Sevestre,  Lady,  374 ;    Sir  Thomas, 

374. 
Seville,  anecdote   of  scene   at,  144, 

145. 
Shaftesbury,  Lord,  279,  281. 
Shakespeare,  154. 
Shakespeare's     superstition,     Maiy 

Mitford  on,  498. 
Shaking  Quakers,  visit  to,  118-121. 
Shodden,  Mr.,  444. 
Shiiiner,  Elizabeth,  her  death,  517. 
Shopkeepers,  Parisian,  186. 
Shops,  non-advertising,  obsolete,  32.  ' 
Shuttleworth,  Warden  of   New  Col-  ' 

lege,  antagonism    witii    Whatelv, 

137-139;  his  wit,  138,  165. 
Shyness,  my,  124,  125. 


Sicily  and    South   Italy,  Col.  Peard 

on,  426 ;  departure  of  volunteers 

for,  427. 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  17. 

Siena,  Mrs.  Browning  at,  399 ;    al- 
ways Conservative,  405. 
Simon,  St.,  1. 
Singlestick   practice  with  Anthony, 

156. 
"Siren,  A,"  my  novel,  466;    advice 

of  Lewes  concerning,  466. 
Skerret,  Miss  Henrietta,  252,  253. 
Skerret,  Miss  Maryanne,  252,  263. 
Skerret,  Mrs.,  252. 
Skinner,  Miss,  131. 
Skinner,  Rev.  Mr ,  45,  46. 
Skinner,  Rev.  Mr.,  of  Bath,  130. 
Slang,  modern,  35  ;  progress  of,  36 ; 

when  vulgar,  36 ;   and  why,  37 ; 

humiliation  in  the  use  of  it,  37. 
Sledge-journey  from  Dover,  240. 
Sledges  on  Mont  Cenis,  326. 
Sloaiie,  Mr.,  at   Florence,  337  ;    and 

grand  duke,  338;   his  Friday  din- 
ners, 338. 
Smith,  Sydney,  278;  his  manner  in 

the  pulpit,  279. 
Smithett,  Captain,  171,  176,  203. 
Snobbishness,  absence  of,  among  the 

Vieimese,  222 ;   anecdote  on  this 
-   subject,  222. 
Sobriety,  my,  150. 
Somerset,  Duke  of,  60. 
Sophie,  Austrian  archduchess,  493  ; 
Sorrows,  two   greatest  of   my    life, 

488. 
Soult,  English  frenzy  about,  307;  at 

the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  316. 
Southampton,  Landor  goes  to,  442. 
Southey,    Landor   on    his   marriage, 

442;  Landor  on, 445. 
Spain,    di'struction    of    monasteries, 

Mary  Mitford  on,  498. 
"Specchio,  netto  di,"  query  of  George 

Eliot  concerning,  474. 
Specdyman   at  Winciiester,  69,   70, 

101. 
SpitiTig  GaVjell  at  Winchester,  89. 
Squiie,  country,  sixty  years  ago,  44. 
Squiress  sixty  years  ago,  44,  45. 
Stage-coaches,  plans  for  improving, 

13,  14. 
Standing  to  write,  519. 
Stanley,  Ed.,  Landor  on,  447. 
Stanton,  near  Monmouth,  16. 


INDEX. 


543 


State  prisons  in  Austria,  498. 
Steerage  passage  across  the  Atlantic, 

109. 
Sterne  quoted,  320. 
Stephens,  Mr.,  preacher,  282  ; 
Stewart,  Miss  Rcsa,  324. 
Stisted,  Mrs.,  368  ;  was  Queen  of  the 

Baths,  368  ;  her  harp-phiying,  368, 

369 ;   brings  her  husband's  bodv 

from  Rome,  369 ;  Colonel,  368, 369 ; 

his  death,  369  ;  and  burial,  370. 
Store  Street,  2. 
Storm  at  Sea,  111. 
"Stornelli,"  Tuscan,   401;    my  first 

wife's  translations  from,  508. 
Story,  Judge,  Grattaii  (in,  503. 
Story,  the   Misses,  at  Penrith,  304 ; 

Charlotte,  304. 
Strasbourg,  212. 
Stuttgardt,  212. 

Sugaring  jam  tart,  Lewes  on,  480. 
Sultana,  my  first  wife's  grandmother, 

377,  506. 
Sunsliine,  George  Eliot's,  in  London, 

478,  479. 
Superannuation  at  Winchester,  101. 
Superstitution,  local,  300. 
Suppers  at  the  Pitti  Palace,  345. 
Sujireme    Court,    Araei'ican,    Judge 

Story  of  the,  503. 
Surrey,  George  Eliot's  home  in,  465, 

485. 
Swedenborgianism,  302. 
Switzerland,    Haden    in,    cured    my 

sciatica,  486 ;  travel  in,  505. 
Symond^i,  I)r.,  246. 
Sympathius,    Mary    Mitford's    belief 

in,  498. 
Systematic   law,  force  of,  at    Win- 
chester, 85. 
Szec.>»eiiv,  in   llungarj,  clectioa  for, 

436.  ' 

Tablet,  monumental,  to  my  first  wife, 

516. 
Tabula  Iff/'tm  at  Winchester,  79. 
TiilTv,  Lady  Hulwer's  dog,  3:53. 
Talfourd,  .'<<r;;eaiit,   Marv    Mitford's 

friend,     I'.MJ;     hf?.    "ion,"    497; 

franks  Mary  Mitford's  letters,  497. 
Tandniriiii  in  18»M,  ;n4. 
Taylor,  Ji-remy,  278. 
Tea-things  at  Winchc.>»ter,  70. 
Tclfgniph,  P^xeter  eoiicli,  26. 
Telfbio,  works  of,  478. 


Temple  Bar,  33. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  230. 

Temple,  the,  32. 

Tennyson,  visit  to,  468  ;  his  reading, 
469. 

Teste,  at  the  Chamber,  316. 

"  Testor  inferos,"  454. 

Thackerav,  Rev.  Mr.,  207. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  200,  249  ;  his  dic- 
tum about  humor,  466. 

Thames  Embanknient,  32. 

Theatre,  visit  to,  to  hear  Siddons,  17. 

Theatres,  sixty  years  ago,  39 ;  re- 
forms in,  39 ;  in  London  and 
abroad,  G.  H.  Lewes  on,  482. 

Theatricals,  at  Cincinnati,  126;  pri- 
vate, at  Florence,  415. 

Theresa,  Saint,  266. 

Thibeaudeau,  President,  316. 

Thier-s,  Ad.,  190,  195,  196. 

Thiers,  M.,  308;  312;  anecdote  of, 
308;  flatters  the  masses,  308; 
and  Lady  Bulwer,  335. 

Thomason,  Sir  Edward,  177. 

Thorn,  Colonel,  310  n. 

"Three  Clerks,  The,"  my  brother's 
novel,  Mrs.  Browning  on,  4(t2. 

Three  Mile  Cross,  Miss  Mitford's  res- 
idence, 495. 

"  Three  Peers,  The,"  by  Lady  S , 

Lady  Bulwer  on,  335. 

Tiber,  river,  454. 

Tilley,  Sir  John,  208  ;  married  to  my 
sister,  278,  285,  298. 

Times,  the,  on  Italian  politics,  398. 

Tintern  Abbey,  6(i. 

Tito,  in  George  Eliot's  "Roniola," 
merit  of,  463. 

Tomkisson,  Mr.,  169. 

T<»r(iuay,  comf)ared  with  Naples,  443 ; 
Landor  at,  442. 

Torreborre's  barge,  201. 

Torrens,  Mr.,  as  "Sir  Lucius  O'Trig- 
ger,"  416. 

Tory,  process  of  becoming  n,  491 ; 
Mary  Mitford  becomes  a,  495. 

Tottenham  <"ourt  Road,  2. 

Tours,  in  Kranre,  3.S1. 

Towi.send,  C.  H.,  355. 

TniditiouH  of  Landor  in  Florence, 
438,  439. 

Traffic  between  Dover  and  Canter- 
bury Hioppcii,  "240. 

Tnipboi.-*,  Mis.s,  33. 

Travel  in  West  of  Englnml,  my  fa- 


544 


INDEX. 


tlici's  mode  of,  57,  58 ;  books  of, 
287,  321. 

Treguier  iu  Brittanv,  295. 

Trenton  Falls,  visit'to,  129. 

Trewhella,  Mr.,  517. 

Trollope,Anthonv,niv  vouncer  broth- 
er, 15,-^0-168,  "172,  179,  2t54; 
his  "  Autoblograpliy,"  158;  at  the 
post-office,  178;  m  Ireland,  178, 
179;  in  Soutii  America,  179;  his 
jndiinient  of  me,  248  ;  work  a  ne- 
cessjty  to  him,  249 ;  his  industry, 
2^\  his  illness,  257;  in  Ireland, 
327, 329 ;  walk  at  the  Killuries,  328 ; 
his  standing  for  Beverley,  Dickens 
on,  302 ;  his  criticism  on  Mrs. 
Browning,  394,  395;  his  "Three 
Clerks,"  Mrs.  Browning  on,  402  ; 
dines  with  G.  II.  Lewes,  476  ;  with 
Carlyle,  476 ;  comes  to  see  me  at 
Baden,  486  ;  his  letter  to  my  wife, 
486  ;  his  antobiograpli y,  a  passage 
in,  490;  his  nnstakcn  judgment 
of  my  mother,  490-494. 

Trollope,  Beatrice,  my  daughter, 
poem  on,  by  her  mother,  509- 
512 ;  her  mother's  worship  of, 
514;  early  discipline  of,  516. 

Trollope,  Cecilia,  my  sister,  169,  208, 
211  ;  winters  in  Rome,  387. 

Trollope,  Emily,  my  vounger  sister, 
169,  173,  207. 

Trollope,  Frances,  my  mother,  41,42, 
58  ;  journey  from  Exeter  with,  20  , 
at  Cincinnati,  122,  123  ;  her  letters 
to  my  father  l)ef<jre  marriage,  158  ; 
her  book  on  America,  100;  its 
truthfulness,  161;  its  favdts,  162; 
at  Harrow  Weald,  162;  effects  of 
her  success,  167;  at  Bruge.",  1 69 ; 
her  terrible  time  there,  173-175; 
her  estimate  of  Chateaubriand, 
189 ;  her  ."  Paris  and  the  Paris- 
ians," 189;  her  wonderful  recu- 
perative faculty,  207 ;  her  indus- 
try, 208;  her  account  of  Danube 
l»oat,  213,  214  ;  consultations  with 
me,  247;  her  illness,  250;  set- 
tles in  York  Street,  250 ;  win- 
ters in  Rome,  387 ;  as  "  Mrs. 
Malaprop,"  416;  serious  illness 
of,  was  wrongly  treated,  489 ; 
was  my  inseparable  companion, 
488 ;  her  intense  power  of  enjoy- 
ment, 489 ;    her   last   days,  490, 


518;  my  brother  Anthony's  mis- 
taken judgment  of,  490,  491,  494  ; 
portrait  of,  for  Princess  Metter- 
nieli,  492  ;  attacked  by  erysip- 
elas, 493;  her  death,  518;"  my 
promise  to  her,  the  keeping  of, 
518. 

Trollope,  General  Sir  Charles,  at  Ven- 
ice, 386 ;  his  membership  of  the 
Congress  at  Venice,  386. 

Troll<)|)e,  Ilenrv,  my  eldest  brother, 
15,  55,  107,"  116,  128,  173;  his 
illness,  173,-175;  my  last  parting 
with  him,  173. 

Trollope,  Rev.  Anthony,  my  graud- 
fatlier,  44. 

Trollope,  Theodosia,  ray  first  wife, 
her  death,  488,  505 ;  her  intellect- 
ual and  moral  qualities,  506 ;  in- 
fluence of  race  on,  506 ;  Mrs. 
Browning  on  her  multiform  facul- 
ty, 506 ;  her  musical  talent,  507 ; 
her  talent  for  language,  507 ; 
poems  by,  509-512;  her  land- 
scape painting,  513;  her  opinions, 
514;  her  hatred  of  the  pontifical 
government,  514;  her  social  pref- 
erences, 514;  her  rule  of  life,  615; 
as  a  daughter-in-law,  515. 

Trollope,  Thomas  Anthonv,  my  fa- 
ther, 2-4,  9,  14,  40-43,  47,  48,  53, 
56,  58,  61,  105,  109, 117,  128,  129, 
132,  133;  at  the  whist  table,  40; 
his  mode  of  teaching,  41  ;  his  ex- 
pectations disiip[)ointed,  47;  his 
dispute  with  Whately,  146;  no 
fortune-hunter,  159  ;  his  failures, 
167;  at  Bruges,  169;  consulta- 
ti(jns  with  French  physicians,  182  ; 
his  declining  health,  204;  his 
death,  204  ;  his  unhappy  life,  204  ; 
his  peculiar  temperament,  205  ;  his 
New  College  friends,  205  ;  his  "  Ec- 
clesiastical Dictionary,"  206 ;  his 
great  industry,  200. 

Trooper,  Austrian,  falls  in  streets  of 
Florence,  406,  407. 

Troops,  Tuscan,  find  the  Revolution, 
422. 

Tub,  prefect  of,  at  Winchester,  72- 
74. 

Tiibingen,  adventure  at,  218,  219. 

Tuckerman,  Mr.,  American  writer, 
449. 

Tuileries,    ball,  anecdote,   186 ;    l>al 


INDEX. 


545 


monsire  at,  810 ;  suspected  con- 
spiracy at,  310. 

Tun  bridge  Wells,  G.  11.  Lewes  at, 
481. 

Tunding  at  Winchester,  78,  79. 

Tupto,  Warden's  nickname,  91. 

Ttirbot,  mutilated,  203. 

Tunite  Cava,  gorge  of,  313,  314. 

Tuscan  cities,  wt,dding  trip  among, 
389;  Stornelli,  my  first  wife'.-* 
translations  from,  508. 

Tuscans  not  progressive,  404. 

Tuscany  and  Papal  States,  341 ;  con- 
dition of,  in  1840,  348;  Duke  of, 
liis  justice,  375  ;  grand-ducul,  dis- 
liked at  the  Vatican,  409. 

Tutor  and  pupil  at  Winchester,  85, 
86. 

Twistleton  family,  49. 

Tyburn  turnpike.  22;  toll-raan  fVt,  22. 

Ty[)iius  fever,  I  am  attacked  by,  55. 

Tyrol,  ramble  in,  325. 

Udolpho,  Mysteries  of,  and  Raglan 

Castle,  59. 
Uhland,  218. 

Upper  Arno,  the  valley  of  the,  462. 
Upton  Pynes,  27. 

Vacancies  at  New  College,  69. 

Vallombrosa,  421,  450,  453. 

Van  Huri-n  politics,  Grattan  on,  503. 

Van.-ittart,  Arthur,  415. 

Varchi,  the  historian,  418,  474. 

Varying  at  Winchester,  83. 

Vuticaii,  Dickens  on  the,  359. 

Vunxhall,  excursion  to,  166. 

Vein,  opening  of  a,  518. 

"  Venetian  Ambassadors,  Reports 
of,"  405. 

Venetian  glass  and  child,  510. 

Venice  as  a  residence,  331  ;  autuuin 
at,  383 ;  .'v.-ientific  Congress  nt, 
383  ;  magnificent  reception  of  liie 
Congre.-*^,  3SJ,  385;  under  the 
Austrians,  4U5 ;  George  Eliol  ul, 
480. 

Verey's  in  Regent  Street,  Dickens  at, 
855 ;  Diekeiia'  " Godspeed "  din- 
ner at,  361 

Vi-rsrs,  nonsense,  4. 

Via  Nazioiiiile  in  Koine,  3k7. 

Vice-principal's  examination,  curiou.s 
eoineirlenee,  149. 

Viitor  Emanuel,  232. 


Victor  Hugo,  anecdote  of  his  histor- 
ical ignorance,  194. 

Vienna,  journey  to,  planned,  211; 
arrival  at,  220 ;  custom-house  ad- 
venture at,  220  ;  changes  in,  220, 
221;  from  to  England,  239,  240; 
exhibition,  436;  Mr.  E.  Ken  von  at, 
498.. 

Viennese  societv,  221;  exclnsiveness 
of,  221 ;  habits  of,  222-224  ;  loyal 
feeling  of,  anecdote  of,  224,  225. 

Villa,  the,  at  Lucca  Baths,  365. 

Villafranca,  398. 

"  Village,  Our,"  last  volume  of,  495. 

Villages  on  hills  around  Baths  of 
Lucca,  365  ;  mode  of  keeping  time 
at,  366. 

Villani,  the  historian,  418,  474. 

Villari,  Professor  Pasquale,  418; 
Linda,  418. 

"  Villino  Trollope,"  at  Florence,  517 ; 
my  study  in  the,  520. 

Vincent,  Sir  Francis,  at  Florence, 
416. 

Vinerian  fellowship,  3. 

Visconli,  Mademoiselle,  315. 

Visits,  two  important,  376. 

Vol-au-veiit,  true  pronunciation  of, 
304. 

Voltera,  copper  mines  near,  and  Mr. 
Sloane,  337,  517. 

Volunteers,  Colonel  Peard  on,  426. 

Voyage  down  the  Daimbe,  215-217. 

"  Vtilt/im"  at  Winciiester,  82. 

Wackerbaktii,  Mr.,  High  Church 
curate,  278. 

Wager  between  bishop  an<l  dean,  91. 

Walker  &  Wood,  .Messieur.-i,  of  Brad- 
f(.rd,  281. 

Wall,  Mr.,  135. 

Walter,  Madame,  435. 

Ward,  Baron,  his  extraordinary  ca- 
reer, 305  ;  anecdote  of,  306. 

Warton,  Dr.,  95. 

Warton,  Tom,  95. 

Warwickshire,  Landor  goes  to,  •M2. 

Wa.shington,  (Jrattan's  vi^^it  to,  502. 

WatU,  portrait  of  Lady  Holland  liv, 
339. 

Ways,  the  parting  of  the,  248. 

Wei>ster,  Mr.,  of  Boston,  Gnittiin  on, 
502,  6(13;   Mrs.,  502. 

Wellington  Street,  .N'o.  20,  visits  to, 
355. 


546 


INDEX. 


West  India,  book  on,  Anthony's,  476. 

Wliately,  Airlihisliop  of  Dublin,  liis 
Liljeralisni,  133,  141,  143;  purges 
Alban  Hail,  133;  biojiiapliy  of,  by 
Miss  Jane  Wiiately,  134-136;  Ins 
methods  of  teaching,  134,  135; 
anecdotes  of,  135,  138,  140,  143, 
144 ;  di.sliked  by  the  Oxford  dons, 
136;  I  did  not  please  him,  136; 
his  despotic  temper,  137;  antago- 
nism with  Shuttlewoith,  wanlen 
of  A'ew  College,  138  ;  his  wit,  138; 
specimen  of  it,  139;  his  dislike  of 
AVinchester  and  Wykehamists, 
139-141  ;  I  rubbed  him  the  wrong 
way,  140 ;  his  reniarkabh^  utter- 
ances on  state  of  Ireland,  142,143; 
his  logic  lectures,  139,  140,  146  ; 
his  "  Liberalism  "  good  modern 
"Conservatism,"  143;  his  treat- 
ment of  me,  146,  147. 

Whatelv,  Miss  Jane,  134,  135,  139, 
140,  144. 

Whately,  Mr.«.,  135. 

Wheeler,  Mr.,  104. 

Whig,  aristocratic,  495. 

Whigs,  the,  Landor  on,  444. 

Whipcord  and  oats,  25. 

Whist  and  medical  practice,  489. 

White  Bear  Inn,  5. 

White,  Blanco,  144,  145. 

White  IlorseCellar,  5, 22;  scene  at,  6. 

Wiiiie,  Linda,  418. 

Whitebait  and  Gianchctti,  294. 

Whitcfriars,  33. 

Whittaker,  Mr.,  Mary  Mitford's  pub- 
li-shcr,  496. 

Wife,  my  second,  and  George  Eliot, 
484. 

Wilkes,  Mr.,  114,  115,  130. 

William.s  Dr.  David,  10,  17,  77,  80, 
88,  89,  171. 

Willis,  Dr.,  of  Boston,  267. 

Wills,  Mr.,  dinner  with,  361. 

Wil.-^oii,  Rev.  Daniel,  02. 

Winciicster,  Cathedral,  chapter  of, 


1 1 ;  restoration  of,  11;  my  first 
journey  to,  66 ;  college  electors, 
48 ;  election,  maimer  of,  48,  49, 
68;  founder's  kin,  49;  election 
chamber,  68 ;  festivities,  69 ; 
jihraseologv,  70  ;  rations,  70,  71  ; 
Dr.  Gabellof,  492. 

Wise,  Mr.,  444. 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,  in  Casa  Sloane, 
338. 

Wiiley,  the  Heights,  467. 

Witnev,  drives  to,  150. 

AVood,"  Mr.,  of  Bradford,  280;  & 
Walker,  Messieurs,  280. 

Woodburn,  Rev.  Jack,  98. 

Woolaston,  Dr.,  253. 

"  Woonderful,"  favorite  word  with 
Landor,  440. 

Wordswoith,  visit  to,  284  ;  his  recita- 
tion of  his  own  lines,  285  ;  manner 
of  reciting,  285 ;  his  eldest  son's 
misfortune,  499. 

Work,  hard,  248,  249. 

Work  the  great  consoler,  Lewes  on, 
485. 

Wright,  Camilla,  106,  107. 

Wright,  Frances,  106-108,  115. 

Writing-master  at  Winchester,  102. 

Wye,  the,  from  Chepstou  to  Ross, 
59;  banks  of  the  river,  156. 

Wvkehamists,  Whately's  dislike  for, 
136,  139-141. 

XiMENES,  Palazzo,  in  Florence,  389. 

York  Street,  in,  250,  297  ;  return  to, 
322 ;  house  in,  given  up,  322,  323, 

"Young  Backwoodsman,"  Mary  Mit- 
ford  asks  about,  495. 

"  Young  Pretender,  The,"  Mary  Mit- 
ford's stoiv  of,  498. 

Young,  Dr.,  253. 

Young,  John,  43,  44. 

Zandt,  Baron  de,  12,  153. 
Zandt,  Baroness,  325. 


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By  John  Riciiaud  Green.  With  Maps.  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50;  Sheep, 
$3  00  ;    Half  Calf,  $3  75. 

GREEN'S  CONQUEST  OF  ENGLAND.  The  Conquest  of  England. 
By  John  Rkhard  Green.  With  Maps.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50  ;  Sheep, 
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Valuable  Worls  for  FubUc  and  Private  Libraries.  5 

ENGLISH    MEN    OF    LETTERS.      Edited    by   John    IMoklet. 

The  following  volumes  arc  now  ready.      Others  will  follow : 

Joiixsox.  By  L.  Stephen— GiBBo.v.  By  J.  C.  Morison.— Scott.  By  R.  H.  Hut- 
ton.— SiiELi.Ey.  By  J.  A.  Symonds— Goldsmith.-  By  W.  Black.— HrME.  By  Pro- 
fessor Hu.xley. — Defoe.  By  W.  Minto. — Bik.ns.  By  Principal  Shairp. — Sfe.nser. 
By  R.W.  Church.— TnACKER.iY.  By  A.  TroUope. — Bcrke.  By  J.  Morley.— Miltos. 
By  M.  Pattison.— SorTiiEY.  By  E.  Dowden.— Chaucer.  By  A.  W.  Ward.  — Buxyax. 
By  J.  A.  Froiide.— Cowi'ER.  By  G.  Smith.— Pope.  By  L.  Stephen.— Byro.v.  By 
J.  Nichols.— Locke.  By  T.  Fowler.— Wordsworth.  By  F.  W.  H.  ilyers.— Haw- 
thorne. By  Henry  James,  Jr.— Drydes.  By  G.  Saintsbury.— Landor.  By  S.  Col- 
vin. — De  QnxcEY.  By  D.  Masson.  —  Lamb.  By  A.  Ainger.  — Bk.stley.  By  K.  C. 
Jebb.— Dickens.  By  A.  W.  Ward.— Gray.  By  E.  W.  Gosse.— Swift.  By  L.  Stephea 
— Sterne.  By  H.  D.  Traill. — >rACAi-LAY'.  By  J.  C.  Morison. — Fielding.  By  A.  Dob- 
son. — Sheridan.  By  ilrs.  Oliphant. — Addison.  By  W.  J.  Courthope. — Bacon.  By 
R.  W.  Church.— Coleridge.  By  H.  D.  Traill.— SiK  Philip  Sidney.  By  J.  A.  Sy- 
monds.     I'imo,  Cloth,  75  cents  per  volume. 

REBER'S  HISTORY  OF  ANCIENT  ART.  History  of  Ancient 
Art.  B_v  Dr.  Franz  von  Reber.  Revised  by  the  Author.  Trans- 
lated and  Augmented  by  Joseph  Thacher  Clarke.  With  310  Illus- 
trations and  <i  Glossary  of  Technical  Terms.      8vo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

REBER'S  xMEDI^EVAL  ART.  History  of  Mediajval  Art.  By  Dr. 
Fhanz  von  Rkbkr.  Tran.slated  and  Augmented  by  Joseph  Thacher 
Clarke.  Witii  422  Illustrations,  and  a  Glossary  of  Technical  Terms. 
8vo,  Cloth,  f.)  00. 

NEWCOMBS  ASTRONOMY.  Popular  Astronomy.  By  Simon 
Newcomh,  LL.D.  Wiih  112  Engravings,  and  5  Mnps  of  the  Stars. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50;   School  Edition,  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  30. 

VAN-LENNEP'S  bible  lands.  Bible  Lands:  their  Modern  Cus- 
toms and  Manners  Illustrative  of  Scripture.  By  Henry  J.  Van- 
Lennep,  D.D.  350  Engravings  and  2  Colored  Maps.  8vo,  Cloth, 
$5  00;  Sheep,  fG  00;   Half  Morocco,  $8  00. 

CESNOLA'S  CYPRUS.  Cyprus:  its  Ancient  Cities,  Tombs,  and 
Tem|iies  iV  Narrative  of  Researches  and  E.vcavations  during  Ten 
Years'  Residence  in  that  Island.  By  L.  P.  Di  Cesnola.  With 
Portrait,  Maps,  and  400  Illustrations.  8vo,  Clotii,  Extra,  Uncut 
Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $7  60. 

TENNYSON'S  COMPLETE  I'OE.MS.  The  Complete  Poetical  Works 
of  Alfred,  Lmd  Tennyson.  With  nn  Inirodiictory  Sketch  by  Anno 
Thackeray  Ritcliic.  With  Portraits  and  Illustrations.  8vo,  Extra 
Cloth,  Bevelled,  (iilt  Edges,  !i(2  50. 

SHORTS  NORTH  AMKRICANS  OF  ANTIQUITY.  The  North 
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Civilization  Connidcrcd.  By  John  T.  Short.  Illustrated.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $.1  00. 


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GROTE'S  HISTORY  OF  GREECE.  12  vols.,  l2mo,  Cloth,  $18  00; 
Slieep,  $22  80 ;   Half  Calf,  $39  GO. 

FLAMMARION'S  ATMOSPHERE.  Translated  from  the  French 
of  Camille  Flammarion.  With  10  Chromo  -  Lithographs  and  86 
Wood-cuts.      8vo,  Cloth,  $6  00  ;  Half  Calf,  $8  25. 

BAKERS  ISMAILIA  :  a  Narrative  of  the  Expedition  to  Central  Af- 
rica for  the  Siii)pression  of  the  Slave-trade,  organized  by  Isniiiii, 
Khedive  of  Egypt.  By  Sir  Samuel  W.  Bakkr.  With  Maps,  Por- 
traits, and  Illustrations.      8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00  ;   Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  ZAMBESI.  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  to  the 
Zambesi  and  its  Tributaries,  an<l  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Lakes 
Shirwa  and  Nyassa,  1858  to  18G4.  By  David  and  Charles  Liv- 
ingstone. Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00;  Slieep,  $.">  SO;  Half 
Calf,  $7  25. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  LAST  JOURNALS.  The  Last  Journals  of  Da- 
vid Livingstone,  in  Central  Africa,  from  1865  to  iiis  Death.  Con- 
tinued by  a  Narrative  of  his  Last  Moments,  obtained  from  his 
Faithful  Servants  Chuma  and  Susi.  By  Horace  Waller.  With 
Portrait,  Maps,  and  Illustrations.      8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00;   Sheep,  $G  00. 

BLAIKIE'S  LIFE  OF  DAVID  LIVINGSTONE.  Memoir  of  his 
Personal  Life,  from  his  Unjuiblished  Journals  and  Correspondence. 
By  W.  G.  Blaikie,  D.D.  With  Portrait  and  Map.  8vo,  Cloth, 
$2  25. 

"  THE  FRIENDLY  EDITION  "  of  Shakespeare's  Works.  Edited  by 
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cut Edges,  Sheets,  $27  00 ;  Cloth,  $30  00  ;  Half  Calf,  $60  per  Set. 

GIESELER'S  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY.  A  Text -Book  of 
Church  History.  By  Dr.  John  C.  L.  Gieseler.  Translated  from 
the  Fourth  Revised  German  Edition.  Revised  and  Edited  by  Rev. 
Henry  B.  Smith,  D.D.  Vols.  I.,  II.,  IIL,  and  IV.,  8vo,  Cloth, 
$2  25  each;  Vol.  V.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $3  00.  Complete  Sets,  5  vols., 
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CURTIS'S  LIFE  OF  BUCHANAN.  Life  of  James  Buchanan,  Fif- 
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tis. With  Two  Steel  Plate  Portraits.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut 
Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $6  00.  /    /ItjlM^A 

COLERIDGE'S  WORKS.  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel  Taylor 
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Theological  Opinions.  Edited  by  Professor  W.  G.  T.  Shedd.  With 
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ume ;  $12  00  per  set;  Half  Calf,  $24  25. 


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